Youth-Led Food Systems Through Regenerative Agriculture: Growing, Cooking, and Leading for Community Health and Career Awareness

Commodities

Practices

This project engages youth in food systems through hands-on regenerative agriculture, garden-to-table cooking, applied mathematics, and youth leadership. Students grow food, prepare kid friendly meals, and create a youth-designed cookbook that connects nutrients, body systems, affordability, and career awareness. The regenerative practice centers on community-based food supply and stewardship. Innovation lies in integrating youth leadership, applied math, nutrition education, and kid friendly diets into a replicable instructional model. Other educators benefit through shared cookbooks, lesson guides, and implementation strategies that can be adapted for classrooms, afterschool programs, and summer learning spaces without specialized equipment or research infrastructure.

This project will support youth understanding of food systems through hands-on regenerative agriculture, cooking, nutrition education, and applied mathematics. Youth will grow and harvest garden-fresh foods and prepare simple, kid friendly meals reflecting comfort food, gluten-free, whole-food, Mediterranean, pescatarian, and plant-forward eating patterns. Students will identify key nutrients and minerals in foods and explain how meals support body systems commonly associated with diabetes and high blood pressure prevention. Youth will apply practical math skills, including measurement, unit conversion, recipe scaling, nutrient percentages, and cost-per-serving calculations. Students will collaboratively create a youth-designed cookbook connecting food, history, health, math, and community wellness.