Something like a Phenomenom!
The last time I sent a WC your way, 'twas to reminisce upon my trudge to Base Camp a decade ago, which you’ve now no doubt guessed was a memory triggered by the process of conceiving, producing, and pushing out Phenomenom - an idea that feels like it's been bubbling away for a decade, too!
All those years ago, my role as Dep. Head of Humanities was to cherry-pick tools and resources for my team of teachers, to help enrich their classrooms and tick off curriculum codes along the way.
Phenomenom is what I would’ve loved to have found.
Funded by Hort Innovation's Vegetable Fund (with contribution from the federal gov't) it's an entirely free online resource comprised of lesson plans, activity ideas, and video springboards, that allows teachers across every subject from Maths, Science, History, English, Art and beyond, to integrate food literacy into their lessons, without needing to find extra time or money, and complementing whatever else schools are already doing with kitchen gardens, healthy canteens and the like.
It's a prototype of the kind of learning methodology I believe we’ll see more of into the future; I call it 'Episodic Learning'. Students are far more visual these days, so engaging episodic springboards like those we’ve produced, kick off a class, activities support the themes, and then the learning can be reinforced by being available to be viewed online in their own time.
What makes this project so special to me are the people who have already come together to create something so much bigger than the sum of its parts. Like sherpas of knowledge and creativity, our team has trudged through the thick of it together, and I could not have done it without their help.
It's been a mountain of our own making, and the STEEPEST learning curve of our lives, and it feels truly surreal to start wrapping up the final loose ends of a project that has quite literally consumed us for the last 18 months.
Now it's in the hands of teachers and kids, and all I can do is trust that all of our research, insights, and hard work has hit the mark.
That "mark" is all about the 'Kids at the Front' style of Phenomenom's episodes, which I hope inspires classes to create their own food-centric online content, collaborating on and sharing, so that we can build a bank of food literacy resources that mushroom out the more they’re used and reiterated.
The key is in getting the resource into the right hands. If I can get one engaged teacher at every school to give the resources a whirl, word will get around, and soon, it'll be something like a Phenomenom...
As with Everest's Base Camp, there's still a long way to go, but I'm confident that the addition of Ph! to the classroom is a low-hanging touch-point that'll help fan the flames of a broader shift in thinking - and to aid teachers in finding the space to put food back on the menu within an overstuffed curriculum.
Have you told every teachery/health-professionaly/like-minded human-y person you know about it?
I'd love to know what they - and you - think of it, any questions you have about the creative process, and I'd especially love to see how it's being used in classrooms, ala this piece of Little Carrot Dude fan-art from a 10y/o, with which I shall bid you adieu:
Cheerio!
A - Z.
P.S. Here's a great article that sums up what we've done in a far fancier way than I, from SMH's entertainment editor, Karl Quinn (my favourite bit is the 🍆 caption, naturally).