Envirobeat Teacher’s Conference 2012

1. EnvirobeatTeacher’s Conference 2012 Tambar Springs Restaurant and Garden Maddy Adams

2. Tambar Springs Restaurant & Garden

3. How this initiative was born… • For the last 2 years the students at the school have been growing their own vegetables and cooking their own lunch once a week. To give the students the variety of cooking experiences they need, the “Luscious Lunches” Restaurant initiative was adopted. • “Luscious Lunches” is open for lunch every third Wednesday of the month and consists of a two-course meal. By opening a restaurant for the community, the students have been able to further develop their knowledge and skills in both areas of food preparation and cooking. The students run the restaurant from start to finish, including choosing the recipe, converting recipes, shopping for ingredients, preparing and cooking the food, setting the tables, plating and serving meals and cleaning up. • Through this program the students have the opportunity to sit, eat, and have conversations with members of the wider community. All students from Kindergarten to Year 6 are fully involved in every process and are very proud of what they can now produce. The community has embraced this initiative and the students are now cooking food for their families at home.

13. The school kitchen garden has been a part of the school for the past six years. During that time it has been a low maintenance, experimental garden with students tending to it at their own leisure and during lunch breaks. During term three this year, the school decided to design and plan a more productive kitchen garden where the students take responsibility and look after the garden. At this stage it is still a low cost garden which is being run with donations from community members. The school has applied for some grants to assist in the expansion of the garden but as it is very small scale, there has been no success thus far.