by Stephanie Hamilton, Practicum Supervisor
From September to December 2017, eight 3rd year Humber nursing students had the opportunity to work with Green Thumbs and Rose Avenue Public School for their community placement.
Through assessment of the Rose Avenue school population and in collaboration with Green Thumbs, the Humber students developed a project with the goal to improve nutritional awareness and decision making related to healthy eating through family centered learning and hands on activities.
To achieve this goal, the nursing students participated in the Green Thumbs gardening program at Rose Avenue School working with classes and the Green Thumbs gardener. The garden program incorporated hands-on learning related to growing plants and how to incorporate healthy vegetables into everyday meals. The Rose Avenue students were able to learn the different health benefits of each plant while becoming familiar with a garden and how things are grown.
The Humber students were also able to provide workshops to kindergarten and Grade 3 classes. The workshops focused on garlic and microgreens and allowed students to sample food, learn about the health benefits of microgreens and garlic, participate in games that would help them further remember this new information and plant microgreen seeds and garlic bulbs which they could watch grow.
We were also able to participate in the Rose Avenue Health Fair and displayed three interactive boards. The first board featured information on “Eating Well For Less” which provided tips for saving money while shopping for healthy foods, highlighted the harvest calendar, and gave information about coupons and price match websites/apps for parents to access. There was also an interactive game for the students to guess the prices of certain popular foods seen in restaurants, fast food places, or grocery stores, and then compare the prices of making the same dish at home to the price of buying the premade item.
The second board, titled “Cookbook Collaboration,” provided information about healthy eating, easy recipes to make at home, and advertised the Rose Avenue Community Cookbook in development. The third board “Getting Your Greens” provided information about the health benefits of microgreens and ideas of how to incorporate microgreens into your diet. Tiny planters containing microgreens were given out for the students to grow at home.
At the end of our placement, we were able to develop a community recipe book in collaboration with Rose Avenue School with healthy recipes submitted by students. The cookbook contains healthy and diverse food recipes, information on how to save money while still eating healthy, and the health benefits of fruits and vegetables.
The Humber students had an enjoyable and successful placement with Green Thumbs and Rose Avenue School. See our healthy eating video!
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