www.GoodinEveryGrain.ca Good in Every Grain 30 THE GOOD IN EVERY GRAIN team continues to improve and create new resources as part of our Good in Every Classroominitiatives. From website changes to an educatorfocused newsletter and new resources, activities, and ideas for educators to use in the school year, Good in Every Classroom is a growing part of Grain Farmers of Ontario’s public outreach campaign. We decided to create a Healthy Respectful Lunchroom program for our back-to-school initiatives in September. This program was created to complement back-to-school thinking around lunchroom eating and linked to the Ontario health curriculum. WHY? Lunchrooms can be chaotic and messy, especially coming back from summer break. Students in primary grades are still learning the social niceties of being respectful citizens and, in September, have to adjust to being back in the classroom with set schedules, rules, and other students around. Sometimes, students can be disrespectful (intentionally or not) with differences — this can be reflected in the lunches kids bring to school. We created a program to help solve the problem by creating a safe and respectful lunchroom for all students. The Healthy Respectful Lunchroom program was created in partnership with a school-focused dietitian with experience in primary grades and students. Gwen Kostal is an Ontario dietitian who runs Dietitians 4 Teachers and specializes in helping teachers and educators teach about food. Educators were provided with fun and educational videos to watch with their students about what a healthy, respectful lunchroom looks like. Students learned respectful habits and how foods can differ for each student or family. Educators also received a wide variety of free resources for grades one to three, including a discussion guide, PowerPoint presentation, printable worksheets, and a poster to put up in their classroom. We also hosted live virtual sessions for Gwen to have one-onone conversations with students and educators during the first two weeks of school. ENGAGED STUDENTS AND EDUCATORS The program had great results. Thirteen classrooms — over 275 students — attended the live virtual sessions with Gwen, and the Healthy Respectful Lunchroom webpage, promoting the program and resources, logged more than 7,000 views. With Good in Every Grain public outreach, conversations about agriculture often start with food. With Good in Every Classroom, we take this same approach when introducing agriculture topics to teachers and students. Creating programs that will help educators in the classroom, and begin a conversation around food, will help introduce them to agriculture information. For more information on our education initiatives, please visit our website, www.GoodinEveryGrain.ca and check out the Good in Every Classroom section. l
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