The Earth School Natural Cooking & Nutrition program is part of the Community Health curriculum implemented at the school in September 2007. This curriculum strives to cultivate an understanding of the benefits of exercise, healthy food choices and nutritional awareness, which is often lacking among today’s children nationwide.

Program Description

"My son's interest in school skyrocketed with the addition of a cooking curriculum. The lessons have transformed even the dreaded hour before dinner into a fun, educational time, where my sons not only help me cook, but my kindergartener teaches his younger brother how many "quarters make a whole" and what elements make broccoli green. Fractions, botany and peaceful moments at ages four and six? I'm all for it!"
Casey, Parent The program consists of weekly cooking workshops that take place directly in the classrooms thanks to a mobile cooking cart that houses a cooker and storage space for cookware and utensils. The concept of using a cart that moves enables teacher and parent-led workshops to easily relocate and set-up in different classrooms for cooking workshops for students of all grades.

The weekly workshops explore the importance of natural cooking, while actually making simple, nutritious, and tasty dishes. To further enhance the learning experience for the students, the program also includes a schedule of guest chefs: parents who bring recipes representing the many cultural traditions of our student body, and also trainee chefs from neighboring Cooking Schools.

The program provides a hands-on means to explore many strands of the curriculum, from environmental, socio-economic, and nutritional issues, through the basic maths involved in measuring, and carefully combining ingredients.

The Earth School envisages our students as catalysts of change. With staggering statistics regarding poor diet yielding ever rising rates of obesity, hypertension and diabetes in our city's children and young adults, the Natural Cooking and Nutrition program provides a vital role in focusing on the importance of good nutrition and diets rich in whole foods and natural products.