Climate Education

Lettuce discuss healthy school lunches

It’s National School Lunch Week in the U.S., and on Wednesday, it’s World Food Day. We have great ways to help you celebrate both!

This year’s theme for National School Lunch Week is “School Lunch: What’s on Your Playlist?” The School Nutrition Association’s website offers resources and social media tools to engage students in exploring healthy and nutritional options for lunch.

At Earth Day Network, we support National School Lunch Week in conjunction with our Foodprints for the Future campaign. That said, we can offer suggestions for you to spice up your lunch playlist with a vegetable medley. Or how about you drop the beat while you pick up some beets, and radishes, too! Check out our recommended Foodprints food blogs for inspiration of how to diversify for your plate while reducing your Foodprint.

We developed the Foodprints campaign to help people understand the total impact of food choices, which includes the environmental impacts of growing, producing, transporting and storing of our food.

In 2020 we are asking schools of all kinds to take the 20/20 Foodprints Pledge: reducing food waste by 20 percent and increasing healthy and affordable plant-based options by 20 percent. Sign up to receive information about our soon-to-launch pledge and visit our What You Can Do page for more information.

As for World Food Day on Wednesday, October 16: This year’s theme is “Healthy Diets for a #ZeroHunger World.”  The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations website has a range of resources to help educators and students explore this topic, including a poster contest for students ages 5–19 to explore the topic of #ZeroHunger.

At Earth Day Network, we know that food is the fuel for student success. As with all energy, we want to use the most sustainable and earth friendly forms — only the best for our youth. We hope you take time this week to think about your food choices with your students and your families, mix up your playlist, enjoy some delicious new treats and continue the conversation about our Earth.