See, sow and taste

Where does our food come from? How is it cultivated and which plants can thrive here in our cold climate? In the project “See, Sow and Taste” children and young people can learn more about these important issues through hands-on exercises. The project is a pedagogic and cultural pilot project lead by NordGen in collaboration with other Nordic institutions and local actors in Lithuania.

Within the project, NordGen developed education material during the spring of 2023. This has been distributed along with seeds and cultivation material to pre-schools, schools and after-school clubs in Reykjavík. The education material consists of instructions and background material to four different cultivation experiments that can be performed using seeds provided by NordGen. The cultivation experiments can be adapted to different age groups and have the following orientations:

• What is a seed?
  The children are encouraged to investigate different kinds of seeds, learn more about them and see what happens when they germinate.

• Grow microgreens indoors
  The children can sow vegetables indoors, tend them to make them germinate and grow, and finally harvest and eat the microgreens.

• The four cereals
  The children learn more about the perhaps most important plant species for us in the Nordic region. They can sow the provided cereal seeds indoors or outdoors and tend them until they are ready for harvest. At this stage the seeds can be grinded and used for baking to illustrate the plants’ path from farm to fork.

• Same but different
  Most children know that there are many different vegetables, but it is not as clear that there are many different varieties of each vegetable species. In this cultivation experiment, the children are introduced to the fact that carrots, turnips and radishes can have different shapes and tastes, due to their genetic diversity.

About 1 000 children participated in the project during 2023. In 2024, the the next project phase involves schools in the Faroe Islands and Lithuania.

The lessons learnt from this pilot project might form a base for a larger multinational project teaching children and youth about food, cultivation, biodiversity, climate change, self sufficiency and the importance of healthy food.

The project is financed by the Nordic Council of Ministers.