Many children have no clue as to where food on their plates comes from. From groceries, they may say. In Holland, a school garden system has been in place for over 100 years. Each year, primary schools take their kids to the fields where the youngsters will learn how to sow, grow and cook food. From classroom to nature, they will learn something important with their hands, the cycle of life. Dirty your hands and boots, and enjoy your own harvest. How to grow vegetables? What better ways to fight obesity and create biodiversity?! The kids will get close to nature and animals. Renowned Dutch filmmakers at EMS Films follow five classes in Amsterdam over the course of an entire year in relation to their school garden project. The kids’ curiosity, discovery, successes and failures are captured lively and candidly in full view. Informative and fun. For a period of a 100 years, school gardens stand for broad nature education, which teaches children knowledge of and respect for nature. Fun, do it yourself, experience, discover. That is central to the lessons. Themes such as biodiversity, cycle of life, healthy food, food and sustainability receive a lot of attention. The food, biodiversity and nature themes are worldwide a hot topic.
Modern people are alienated from their food. This ignorance makes us uncertain and helps us to make the wrong choices: too much ready-made food, too much sweetness and fat. Not enough fresh vegetables.
What better way to start the awareness of the value of food than to teach children how to grow their own vegetables? If you have sown vegetables yourself and you have taken care of it, you want to eat it too. Filmmaker EMS FILMS has taken the initiative to use this momentum to produce a documentary film about the school garden. EMS FILMS is known for its films about Dutch nature such as The New Wilderness and Katwalk. Films with which they have now attracted more than a million visitors in Dutch cinemas and a multitude of them nationally and internationally at festivals, TV and (online) media.