Farm to School in K-12 Education

Three people are making crepes in an outdoor cooking cart.
Montpelier High School's student-led crepe cart sells meals at the local farmers' market. Photo: Sarah Webb.

Hands-On Food Systems Education to Empower Youth

Farm to school education provides a real-world context for learning across all disciplines. Engaging youth in hands-on opportunities such as planting gardens, cooking food from scratch, and visiting local farms establishes meaningful connections to their learning and deepens understanding. 

Students learn not just where food comes from, but how food choices affect their own health and the health of their communities—encouraging informed, responsible, and empowered decision-making.

Rather than an add-on to an already crowded schedule and curriculum, food systems education can be integrated within the existing curriculum and aligned with learning standards, educator professional development, and licensing standards.

What Farm to School Can Look Like in K–12 Schools

There is no “right way” to do farm to school, and, in fact, you’re probably already incorporating elements into your curriculum. Find ideas and resources:

School Gardens

School gardens offer the opportunity for students to learn how to grow, harvest, and prepare food while exploring topics like soil health, ecosystems, plant biology, and so much more. Learn more.

Harvest of the Month

Food Connects’s Vermont Harvest of the Month provides ready-to-use materials like recipes, posters, classroom activities, and cafeteria signage to celebrate seasonal, local ingredients each month. It's a great entry point to engage students and build excitement around local food.

Food Systems Projects & Units

Farm to school can be integrated within so many parts of your  existing curriculum. Students explore how food travels from seed to table with food systems mapping projects, celebrate the diversity of food traditions among their peers, discover how food waste is affecting the environment, and discuss the ethics of food access in their own community, and so much more. Explore our stories for more inspiration, and use Vermont FEED’s curated curricular resources for more structured tools.

Local Food Taste Tests & Classroom Cooking

Engage students in tasting local produce and preparing simple snacks to connect nutrition with local agriculture. Find tips for implementing programs and case studies in Vermont FEED’s Guide to Taste Testing Local Foods in Schools and Food Connects’s Taste Test Toolkit.

Field Trips & Farmer Visits

Visits to farms, food processing facilities, or farmers' markets offer students the opportunity to see the food system in action. And, you can bring the ‘farm’ to your classroom, too. Invite a local farmer to speak with your students, in-person or virtually. Find tips for connecting with farmers in Vermont FEED’s Guide for Connecting Farms to Schools & Communities and learn more about the Dairy in the Classroom program.

Get Connected

The Vermont Farm to School & Early Childhood Network supports two Action Teams that address the integration of food systems into K-12 classrooms:

The Ease of Use Action Team is building a community of practice for shared learning, peer support, and emergent topics among people doing work across the state to connect farms, food, and children.

The Educational Value of Farm to School Action Team is fostering strong commitment for farm to school from key leaders in education to create a stronger alignment between farm to school and current priority initiatives in education.

Annual Statewide Farm to School Youth Programs

High school students gather around a picnic table, engaged in a garden activity with seeds and soil.

FEAST Summit

The FEAST Summit (Food Education and Sustainable Thinking) is a student-organized day of workshops and conversations designed to convene Vermont high school students who are passionate about food systems, sustainability, and their role in addressing climate action.

Learn more

kids cooking during the Jr Iron Chef VT competition

Jr Iron Chef VT

Jr Iron Chef VT is a statewide culinary competition challenging teams of middle and high school students to create nutritious, local dishes to inspire school meal programs. Support or coach a team to deepen youth food education and build school community.

Learn more

Key Resources & Opportunities for Educators

Find Regional & Statewide Support for Your Work

Explore our network partner list to find your regional farm to school organization for professional learning opportunities. Or, contact Vermont FEED, offering statewide professional learning opportunities for schools.

Vermont’s Farm to School & Early Childhood Grants

Funding is available to support expanding your food systems projects and professional learning. Explore the Vermont Agency of Agriculture’s Farm to School and Early Childhood Grant Program.

Our Resource Library

The Network and network partners have an extensive collection of guides, activities, webinar recordings, and more to support your work. Explore our library, and filter by “Educators and Curriculum" and age group to hone in on what you need.

Northeast Farm to School Institute

Vermont FEED’s Northeast Farm to School Institute has been bringing teams together to build relationships, skills, and a collaborative action plan for their schools. With the support of a coach, teams spend the school year putting their plans into action and strengthening their capacity to impact classrooms, cafeterias, and communities, with change that lasts.

Vermont Farm to School Coordinator Calls

Hosted by our Ease of Use Action Team, these monthly informal calls offer the space to meet other farm to school coordinators and educators around Vermont. Join in to make connections, troubleshoot, share resources, and celebrate with people connecting kids to where their food comes from. The call is open to anyone, anywhere, doing anything in farm to school. Check our calendar for upcoming calls.

Tools for Building Action Plans & a Farm to School Team

Use Vermont FEED’s digital toolkit to get a systems-wide view of your farm to school work, define goals, and make an action plan.

Stories to Inspire Your Work