Acker e.V. / Ackerdemia e.V.

Christoph is working towards the necessary mindset shift that re-embeds agriculture in society and turns it into the center piece for environmental education. In order to do this, he fosters an appreciation for the true value of nature, thus setting the basis for sustainable lifestyles as well as healthier consumption and nutrition patterns. Starting its work only in 2013/4, the Vegetable Academy is now present at 24 schools in Germany and Austria involving more than 700 children, and has adapted the curriculum already to other contexts such as Kindergarten, sports clubs and professional education programs. The agricultural field is always the central piece of the curriculum, because it is the key to illustrate the different facets of sustainability. Over the course of one school year, 20 - 30 students (mostly aged 8-14) plant and grow vegetables on a field (min.100sq) on or very close to their school campus that has been prepared and set up together with the Vegetable Academy team. Either as an afternoon activity or as part of the school day, the participating children form teams of 4-6 students responsible for a certain parcel of the land -- each student team has the continuous support of a Vegetable Academy trained external mentor (parent, older student, retiree) and at least one teacher. The Vegetable Academy provides all necessary and very professionally made learning materials as well as gardening supplies and seeds. An online learning game forms an important addition to the curriculum: here students can gain points for their planting successes, answer online questions, get more information and compare themselves with other participating schools. The online game is a motivational tool and increases the environmental learning success. Most importantly, it connects with the living reality of the kids who are natives in new technologies but otherwise lack contact with nature. The curriculum consists of 20 modules, the first 10 focusing on vegetable growth and harvest, agriculture, and the last 10 focusing on nutrition and conservation, and ensuring the transfer to more global topics such as food waste, virtual water and biodiversity. During the harvesting period, the Vegetable Academy triggers students’ entrepreneurial qualities, because - often for the first time - participants also have to think about pricing and selling their vegetables. Sales strategies vary between three models: 1) fixed purchase by the school cafeteria, 2) vegetable sponsor (the kids look for one vegetable sponsor who will buy off the weekly harvest), 3) “over-the-fence sale” (kids try to sell vegetables at school events or at a stand in the neighborhood). The Vegetable Academy year ends with the preparation of the field for the next generation. The combination of elements in the curriculum guarantees that students will not only learn in an applied and holistic way about agriculture and nutrition, but it also fosters intergenerational learning, teamwork and respect, responsibility and leadership skills. Teachers have pointed out that ‘difficult’ kids in particular have been positively affected and with a boost in self-esteem were often able to generally improve their learning successes in other classes as well. For example, there is a student who has a learning disability and difficulty concentrating in the regular school setting. In the Vegetable Academy, however, he is one of the most interested and enthusiastic students. His teacher noticed that his motivation to go to school and to learn has increased significantly since then (Vegetable Academy Impact Report). A team effort as well as continuous teachers’ support is crucial for the success of the Vegetable Academy. Christoph and his team support in the set-up of the field, the sowing as well as the necessary agricultural information, but also provide weekly materials and reminders, support for sales during vacation times, as well as on-site help through the matching with mentors and “personal field consultants”. They also ensure embedding their actions in the agricultural ecosystem through raising awareness and matchings with other stakeholders (for extra-curricular visits to farms, wholesale trading places, supermarkets, or other related possible sites of interest). If needed, the team offers special trainings, and fosters exchange with other Vegetable Academy teachers – all to strengthen the network and continuity of vegetable academies at schools. The only prerequisite for setting up the Vegetable Academy is an interested school teacher. Since the vegetable academy has so far strategically been present at the relevant teacher networks conventions, at important conferences and education sector events as well as in (social) media, they have in very short time gained an enormous visibility. For 2016, there are already 60 new schools that have showed interest in implementing the Vegetable Academy. To ensure the financial viability of each Vegetable Academy at school, Christoph has come up with an innovative match fund system. The Vegetable Academy costs 4000 €/school/year, with an additional 1.500€ in the first year for the set-up of the field, which is paid by the school (alternatively by the friends’ association, or a local sponsor). The yearly amount is split between 2.500€ being paid by a company sponsor (the Vegetable Academy team is responsible for the acquirement) and 1.500€ paid by the school (but re-financed for example by the revenue of the vegetable sales). Several companies (i.e. BioCompany) already regionally contribute to the match fund in addition to grants by foundations (Raiffeisen Stiftung, Software AG Stiftung, etc.) and public funding (city of Munich). The Vegetable Academy plans to permanently ensure parts of the match funds through a commitment by the German government to invest in education for sustainable development. Discussions with various environmental state ministries as well as the ministry of education are already taking place. In order to truly change the educational plan and to influence political decision making so that innovative learning for sustainability is given more space in schools, the Vegetable Academy plans to scale as quickly as possible without compromising on quality. Taking into consideration the regional differences in education in Germany, they have developed a social-franchise-system that builds on local/regional coordinators. These coordinators are trained for two weeks in Berlin und later use the standardized Vegetable Academy material and methodology, but they are responsible for local networking, implementation and adaptation as well as coordination and quality management. This way Christoph and his small core team of 7 (and a total budget of currently about 380.000 €) can continue to focus on the core competences of the Vegetable Academy (entrepreneurial strategy, quality pedagogical approach, impact measurement and quality management). The Vegetable Academy ensures sustainable education in contrast to many programmatic interventions with little to no lasting impact. The initial impact evaluation has shown that 2/3 of the participating kids discovered new kinds of vegetables and parents reported significant changes in the eating routine of their children. The teachers gave without exception an excellent rating for the service. In addition, they reported the considerable enthusiasm of the kids for the Vegetable Academy lessons. Quite a few kids started to grow vegetables at home and shared their knowledge with siblings or grandparents. And a lot of parents said that they too learned a lot because they were confronted with previously unknown types of vegetables or were asked big questions about the larger context of agriculture and sustainability. With more and more full-time schools in Germany and need for afternoon activities, the scaling potential is huge. The Vegetable Academy provides a “ready-to-use” education model, easily implemented at every school and significantly improving environmental knowledge and raising awareness for more sustainable behavior. A “plug-in” version of it is easily imaginable in other national contexts. Also, this method may not only be used to foster sustainability but is possibly transferable to other pressing societal issues in the future, changing learning practices in general.

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