The Foodweb framework is a distillation of core ecological patterns:
ENERGY FLOWS - MATTER CYCLES - SYSTEMS
We integrate these patterns into conversations, stories and activities in the garden so that kids learn to trace movement and change in living systems.
All living systems depend on a flow of energy through them and cycling of matter within them and these patterns occur in all natural systems at all scales.
In Foodweb sessions we dwell in a curiosity lead ritual of tracing energy and matter through systems at any scale from microbes to ourselves, to the garden or the whole the planet. This gives kids incidental opportunities to develop, understand and connect to key scientific concepts across complex everyday phenomena.
The Foodweb framework for garden based eco-literacy includes these concepts from the key ideas of the Australian science curriculum.
Patterns, order & organisation, Form and function,
Stability and change, Scale and measurement,
Matter, energy and Systems
Our curriculum framework uses the broad explaining power of the scientific patterns of energy flows, matter cycles and systems as cognitive processes to understand change, connections and complexity. This approach is based on the science of symbiosis, ecosystem ecology, the physics of interaction, intra-action and complexity science.
Our pedagogy uses storytelling, conversation, performance, visual arts, music, experiential learning and play to explore these patterns and develop habits of mind that bring belonging, connection, response-ability and re-enchantment to children’s lives, relationships and worldview.
Our gardens are where we see an entry point to notice and pay attention to ourselves and the more-than-human world. Where we interact with, build relationships, apply and consolidate these ways of knowing. It is where we discover and nurture humility, gratitude, curiosity and awe for the world we live in. It is how we learn to ‘stay with the trouble’; to make a practical, positive impact on our immediate world, as an antidote to the despair we can often feel for the state of the planet.
Foodweb Education is a garden-based program, however, it was developed in schools in low socio economic urban areas with minimal budgets and access to ‘nature’ so we use science to re-enchant the everyday, mundane activities like breathing and eating and discover how they connect us to our world and universe. Our characters and storylines can be microbes, geological processes and even sunshine with a major pedagogical aim being to make the unconscious conscious and the invisible visible, and loved. We trace matter and energy from ourselves,ora fungal spore, or a glucose molecule, to the amazon rainforest or the global carbon cycle. Our aim is to empower our students with a schema for seeing, thinking, and participating in the complex living systems we are nested in, linking us to the stories ofrocks and bacteria, atoms of calcium, bees in the trees or electricity powering our TVs
It is a deeply personal learning journey where our students come to understand that they, we, humans exist in relationship and abide by the same laws and principles of science as all living systems at and across all scales. This approach is based on ecosystem ecology, earth and life sciences and complexity science. From microbes to melons as soon as you plant a seed you can become deeply aware that we are all always in relation and not separate from nature and there is magic to be discovered and revered. In their gardens, our students are growing, cooking and eating their own food and developing the gratitude, humility, wonder and love for the world and capacity to traverse times of hardship, grief and loss. As they eat, metabolise and breathe they are able to embed themselves in the broader system of their food garden and extend their tracing abilities and understandings to vast and more complex systems as well as receive all the sensory, physical and psychological benefits of being in and with the more than human ever present in their gardens, no matter how big or small.
Who are we?…..
Megan Floris
Megan Floris is the Co-Founder and Director of Foodweb Education. She has extensive experience running eco-literacy programs in schools and has devoted the last two decades to her passion to empowering children through science and life skills.
Megan has also applied her expertise in community development, horticulture and permaculture to other educational settings through training and professional development workshops, presentations at state and national Environmental Education and Science Education conferences, Melbourne University Master of Environmental Education, Permaculture Design courses and workshops for local councils.
You can usually find her hiding behind a pot of fermenting vegetables but may also need to check the mulch pile.
Why I do what I do.
My upbringing, education, and the broader social and economic system I was raised in, all inherently failed to provide me with the knowledge, skills, relationships and habits of mind required to live within earth's bounds to the enduring benefit of all life. As a young person I literally had no idea how the world works in any kind of practical or embodied way and I became dangerously lost.
After surviving the despair and disillusionment that these gaps created for my own personal existence as well as the increasing awareness of what the collective erosion of this has meant for our planet I devoted myself to attempting to ensure that the next generation would at least have a roadmap for navigating and creating ways back to this. I was committed to finding ways to ensure that other young people did not have to experience what I experienced. Everybody has the right and responsibility to understand how the world works, feel a part of it and be able to make decisions that ensure life on Earth isn’t destroyed, but instead nurtured by humans, as well as live within and create cultures that are connected to and responsive to our biophysical conditions. This became the foundation for our garden based program for children called Foodweb Education.
Isobel Harper
Isobel Harper is a radical home maker and garden educator. She joined the Foodweb team in 2014, inspired to use her experience in Permaculture and Garden Design to help people and especially kids to connect meaningfully with their environment. She is now a partner in the organisation and collaborator in producing the promotional and educational materials
She has multiple passions such as urban land stewardship, food production, composting and a general DIY approach to life. She worked for many years at the Ceres Permaculture and Bushfood Nursery providing gardening advice and support, has facilitated and taught permaculture courses at Ceres and has a graduate Diploma in Garden Design from Burnley and an a Diploma in Permaculture. In a former life she received a bachelor of fine art in sculpture at RMIT.
Rafael Schouten
Raf is co-founder of Foodweb Education, his passion for science and systems thinking was integral to the development of our teaching framework.His involvement in the project arose as Megan identified the need for a clear simple structure for teaching ecology through gardening. With Megan he developed and distilled the Foodweb framework from ecological science and by researching existing environmental education principles.
Rafael has spend time managing community garden programs, making urban perennial food systems and working in sustainable forestry. He is now primarily a scientist, researching plant growth models and working on insect distribution models for agriculture. He has a Graduate Diploma in Geography from the University of Melbourne, and is currently completing a Masters in Bioscience.
Garden as educator
Foodweb education takes seriously our relationship with the garden as a key educator. As a seasonal guide, collaborator and key resource, the garden is the teacher, providing an ongoing resource and insight into how living systems evolve.