The Mobile Sprout Wagon: an innovative new approach to improving pupil’s health through interdisciplinary hands-on food activities

In today’s society there is a tendency that children are increasingly more and more detached and disconnected from the food they are eating; the origins of its components, and the process ‘farm to fork’. This is an issue with wide-reaching consequences to health. In this paper we will seek to answer the questions: How is it possible to create new innovative and interdisciplinary teaching approaches, that enhances the pupils’ understanding of food and a healthier lifestyle? And how can we develop interdisciplinary methods and learning tools that can be implemented as hands-on activities in multiple school subjects? To answer these questions we will introduce Learn4Health, an EU Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership with the aim of creating, strengthening and sustaining health, nutrition and food literacy among pupils in primary and secondary schools in Europe. We will discuss three of the projects created within Learn4Health, and their content, structure and use, and further, analyse their innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to the issues at hand. Next, we will highlight one of these projects, the mobile Sprout Wagon as a prime example. The Sprout Wagon, with its unique mobile construction provides pupils with hands-on learning contexts in multiple school subjects, placing food, nutrition and health on the schedule, and we will discuss how this new, innovative and interdisciplinary approach, can be used as an effective tool inside the classroom to support and facilitate learning in multiple school subjects. Finally, on this background we will present the detailed instructional guides and teaching material which will be developed during the process of the Sprout Wagon and the other Learn4Health projects and which will all be included in the HOFA Handbook - an instructional handbook which will be freely available on the Learn4Health website at the end of the project period. This dissemination strategy will ensure that the insights, innovative approaches, knowledge and experiences will be shared across the borders, thereby securing sustainability of the project and creating wide-reaching impact – and, ultimately, happier, more food literate children.