Monday

  • Classroom introduction: This week is about food. Every day you make a new choice about what you eat, including at school! Do you prepare your own sandwiches for lunch? Do you go to the cafeteria during the lunch break? What is available, and what do you choose? And in the afternoon, do you go for that greasy snack or a whole-wheat roll with salmon? It is important to make conscious choices about what you eat: for yourself and for the world around you. Healthy food helps you feel good. It also reduces the risk of diseases such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.
  • Give a lesson on healthy nutrition.
  • Link healthy eating in the cafeteria to a subject such as Dutch: Ask students to write a piece about ‘What would your ideal healthy cafeteria look like?’ or ‘What does healthy eating mean to you? Why do you or don’t you think it is important?’.

Tuesday

  • Classroom introduction: What does the range of products in our cafeteria look like? And what do you think of it? Is there a healthy selection? Or is attention paid to the origin of a product, such as animal welfare? A free-range egg sandwich or an organic egg sandwich?
  • Give a lesson on food temptation.
  • Link healthy and sustainable eating in the cafeteria to a subject such as Marketing or Communication: Healthy and sustainable are concepts with an image. How do you make a healthy and sustainable sandwich in the cafeteria appealing? Develop a marketing or communication plan for this. For example, look at how they approached this at the ROC in Tiel.

Wednesday

  • Start developing a ‘healthier selection in the cafeteria’ at school level: A healthy school cafeteria starts by forming a Healthy School Cafeteria team. This includes the cafeteria manager, management, teachers and students. To create a healthier and more sustainable selection, you can make agreements with the cafeteria manager or caterer to have more input into the selection and/or consult with shops in the area. View the step-by-step plan on the Healthy School Cafeteria website and get started during this project week.
  • Provide inspiration from the classroom: Divide the class into groups and have them prepare healthy and sustainable sandwiches for fellow students. In addition to sharing a meal, the students can explain to one another why they chose particular ingredients and decide which sandwiches they would most like to see in the cafeteria. Tools you can use for this include the ‘Kies Ik Gezond’ app and our information about seasonal produce and quality marks.
  • Independently: have students rank their cafeteria using the Cafeteria Scan. Allow at least two lessons for this.

Thursday

  • Go out: contact a local producer who is committed to healthy and/or sustainable food and ask for a tour of their business for your class. If this is not possible, invite the producer to give a guest lecture and complement it with a tasting of their products. Follow up the guest lecture with a debate about the effects of food on yourself and the world around you. You can apply for a grant from Jong Leren Eten for this.
  • Give a lesson on food waste and food origins.

Friday

  • Classroom evaluation. Evaluate the week: what did they learn and what did they take away from it?
  • School newspaper and social media: have students pass on their knowledge to fellow students by, for example, writing a piece (a letter to the editor) for the school newspaper about the project week, putting up a poster at school, or having them share photos, videos or stories via social media about what stood out to them most during the project week.

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