FAQs

It’s definitely time for a new approach to food literacy. We want to connect kids to the genuine wonder that’s living inside their veggie crisper. After all, every culture shares the simple ritual of sitting down to eat. It’s the perfect launching pad for a richer understanding of the world. And once you understand something you’re a lot more likely to embrace it.

How do we know all this? Our research partner, Colmar Brunton, helped conduct an extensive knowledge audit to help identify opportunities to bring vegetables into the classroom. We tested it too – with teacher and parent focus groups and one-to-one interviews with kids. All this information we gleaned fed into the creation of Phenomenom.

Research shows ‘health’ labelling can actually put kids off food. Turns out they don’t care about strong bones, vitamins or dietary fibre (they’ve important things to worry about like who’s playing foursquare). So let’s shift the conversation away from eat it ‘cause it’s healthy and have some fun!

The carrot in this case is what food can do for their performance. Like running faster, jumping higher or thinking harder. We want kids to think of vegetables and fresh food as interesting, fun, smart and exciting!

Some of Phenomenom is scripted but, most of the time, this is just a bunch of real kids learning lessons in real time. Our kids ask questions, explore and find out what’s best for them.

The aim with Phenomenom was to create a world you could achieve in an actual classroom. Only sometimes we sent the school excursions up to space
because the view’s much better from up there.

Our resources cover loads of the Australian curriculum and we understand that finding the right ones for you can be time- consuming. Our search function allows you to search via curriculum code, subject or year level.

We also have a bunch of materials on our Pinterest page that you can download and stick up around the classroom so that students can create their very own healthy eating posters.

For teachers we have PDFs and lesson plans and activity sheets combining the history of cuisine and agriculture with lessons about health, art, maths, health, psychology and science, all aligned to the Australian curriculum. For parents we have plenty of home activities to get into. For kids we have experiments and games to play. Don’t mention it. We’re here to help.

The best part is that you don’t need cooking equipment or a kitchen garden to bring food into the classroom. If you have access to these, then even better! Phenomenom is designed to be complementary to existing food literacy initiatives.

You can’t force anything down a kid’s throat. Let’s put them in charge of their diets and their learning. That way the lessons will stay with them for good.

Our lesson plans and videos are just a springboard for even more meaningful conversations in the classroom. We’d love for your kids to create their very own Phenomenom-inspired material.

A healthy diet will help keep kids focused, active and ready to learn. This is proven. We all know it’s true. So let’s give it a real crack!

We’d love this educational resource to be part of a broader plan to get more vegetables and fresh food! into the classroom. These may include elements of kitchen garden and skills-based initiatives that further strengthen the connection to health and nutrition.

If it involves having fun with veggies, chances are we’ll be there.

This is a completely free resource for primary school teachers. We’re relying on you to spread the message to your friends, colleagues, school communities and government, so that it can be used regularly by teachers in the primary school classrooms across Australia.

We’d love to see and hear what you do with Phenomenom. Tag us on Instagram or email us at hello@phenomenom.com.au with your creations!