Pick of the Crop
About the Project
Pick of the Crop program is an initiative of Health and Wellbeing Queensland (HWQld) and delivered by BFVG in the Bundaberg region. Pick of the Crop is a whole-school healthy eating program with the aim of increasing opportunities and consumption of fruit and vegetables by Queensland primary school children. There are more than 35 schools in Bundaberg, Bowen and Logan implementing Pick of the Crop.
Through school agreed action plans, Pick of the Crop is currently supporting 13 state primary schools with unique activities to boost the amount of fruit and veggies their students are eating. School design their own action plan based on five components.
Farmer and food connections
Enabling schools to connect with growers and link practical learning back to the curriculum makes an ideal situation for students to consume more fruit and vegetables. This helps broaden learning experiences for students to better understand the food supply chain and where their fruit and vegetables come from.
Teaching and learning programs
It offers professional development modules to increase food and nutrition knowledge and assistance to implement evidence-based nutrition programs and resources. Enabling opportunities to embed health and nutrition across the curriculum through supporting planning days.
Vegetables and fruit at school
Providing more occasions for students to eat extra fruit and vegetables while at school. This could be through school-wide brain breaks and come and try days, or any school-based activity that support boost students eating fruit and vegetables.
Healthy School Environments
This component increases the supply of vegetables of fruit in tuckshops, to plan and create school gardens, as well as maximise opportunities through school events to ultimately increasing the amount fruit and vegetable being eaten by students.
Parent connections
Creating consistent messaging around nutritious food between school, home and beyond is linked to improved health outcomes for kids and families. Linkages with community and organisation programs and lunchbox initiatives can be explored.
If you would like to know more or get directly involved with Pick of the Crop, please contact Jenna McCormick at BFVG on M|0428 716 218 or projects@bfvg.com.au.
Further information can be found at https://hw.qld.gov.au/initiatives/pick-of-the-crop/
Resources
In the Media
Evidence-based validation for Pick of the Crop
What do you get when you put a diverse and deeply knowledgeable team together with expertise in nutrition, education, early years development, nursing and public policy? It’s not a riddle, it’s the Pick of the Crop Program team.
Pick of the Crop's bumper boost for Bundaberg Primary Schools
Up to another 5,000 primary school students in the Wide Bay region will have the opportunity to learn about and eat more vegetables and fruit and meet the farmers who grow them, with Health and Wellbeing Queensland’s Pick of the Crop program set to expand in the region.
Introducing Miss Joy, Garden Granny
As part of their Pick of the Crop activities, students at Avondale State School are learning how to grow fruit and vegetables and get more productivity out of their garden beds from their very own Garden Granny who volunteers at the school weekly.
Pick of the Crop growing farmer connections in Bundaberg
Our Pick of the Crop program is bringing the farm to the classroom this school term, with hands-on activities and farm excursions to get kids excited about the tasty and colourful veggies and fruit growing in the paddocks around them in Bundaberg.
Encouraging schools to get gardening
We invited Pick of the Crop educators on a guided tour of Marsden State School’s bush tucker garden to learn about traditional plants and their uses, as well as how to set up a sustainable garden, as part of our recent School Garden Masterclass event and livestream.
Getting kids excited about veggies
As part of the Pick of the Crop pilot in Logan, we teamed up the children of Logan City Special School with our resident healthy food Ambassador, Matt Golinski for some food fun—preparing, making and eating delicious rice paper rolls.
Logan kids, putting veggies and fruit on the menu
Logan primary school children will be supported to eat more healthy vegetables and fruit as part of a Health and Wellbeing Queensland pilot set to reach all the way from the classroom to the tuckshop to the farm.
From farm to Classroom
Bundaberg growers will join forces with schools to get kids eating more fresh vegetables and fruit, with the region announced as a pilot location for Health and Wellbeing Queensland’s Pick of the Crop program.
Pick of the Crop swings into action
Less than one per cent of Queensland children eat enough vegetables and many don’t meet fruit recommendations either. Reaching all the way from the classroom to the tuckshop to the farm,