Students dig into Food Literacy at Albion Hills Community Farm

November 6, 2025 · 0 Comments

By Riley Murphy

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

On a blustery Wednesday, Grade Six and Seven students from the Etobicoke Outdoor Education Centre (EOEC) could be seen at Albion Hills Community Farm (AHCF), tucking garlic cloves into small divots in the dirt, all while learning the importance of food literacy.

The Etobicoke Outdoor Education Centre is an overnight centre that is owned and operated by the Toronto District School Board.

Students are provided the opportunity not only to learn more about the environment, but also, through their experiences, achieve many of the goals and objectives set out in their grade-specific curriculum at their schools.

Karen Hutchinson from AHCF shared that they were working with the field centre and their students to help plant their garlic for next season.

Garlic is typically planted between Halloween and Thanksgiving, and is harvested in July, Hutchinson explains.

AHCF plants over 18,000 cloves of garlic annually every fall.

Hutchinson explains that while students from EOEC are learning a variety of skills through their education at the field centre, AHCF also incorporates farm activities.

“The idea is that we’re incorporating farm education, or food literacy, into the outdoor education curriculum because we’re a farm, in a park, in the conservation area,” says Hutchinson.

It is critical to introduce food literacy into the education system, she says.

“When people learn about things then they start to care about them and embrace them,” she says. “We’re educating the next generation of environmental eaters.”

Hutchinson says that they want to teach students where their food comes from.

“We all need to learn about that, about building our food literacy skills. Whether it’s gardening, planting, growing, harvesting, or cooking with food, it goes a long way to making people healthier.”

As Jonathan Clodman, a Grade Six teacher with the Toronto District School Board, watched his students plant garlic, he explained that every Grade Six class in the TDSB has the chance to take an overnight trip like this.

“As much as possible, I set my class up so they get the chance to do this. It’s really a great opportunity because a lot of students don’t have access to experiences like this in the city,” says Clodman.

“As a teacher in my classroom, it’s amazing to see the growth coming back from the trip, seeing them after a trip where they’ve learned to clean up after themselves, to problem solve on their own, it’s really helpful for my own classroom too.”

He notes that food literacy is part of a bigger picture that students don’t often have the opportunity to see where their food comes from.

“This is an experiential opportunity where they’re part of it, where they make connections between the garlic powder on their table, or the garlic right in the jar, and something that actually goes into the earth, which is a connection they haven’t had before,” says Clodman.