What was it all about?

During 2019, this short project helped increase awareness of the Phenomenom initiative, which is all about increasing kids’ education about vegetables. The work focused on the new education material created through the Phenomenom extension project (MT18015), which incorporated Australian mushrooms and onions into Phenomenom’s resources. It involved a professional development series for teachers to help boost awareness and engagement, and the development and distribution of a toolkit to help extend the message further.

Launch event & toolkit

In July 2019, a launch event took place in Sydney with a screening of Phenomenom episode 26 - Eddie Woo and the Fun Guys, followed by a panel discussion on the topic of how to improve attitudes to vegetables amongst children (and their parents) using education. The panel consisted of project leader Alice Zaslavsky, curriculum specialist Beverley Laing, maths teacher Eddie Woo and health and PE teacher Kelly Fullerton.

A launch toolkit provided to attendees included a certificate of Continuing Professional Development and USB with the full suite of Phenomenom PDF resources, teacher guidebook and more.

Professional development workshops

Two pilot interactive professional development workshops to help educate and upskill teachers about the materials and logic behind Phenomenom were held. The first was delivered by Alice Zaslavsky and Beverley Laing to approximately 50 teachers in Geelong and the second to 80 teachers and members of staff in Melbourne.

The interactive workshop series received overwhelmingly positive feedback from academics and pre-service teachers, many of whom indicated that they would be using Phenomenom resources heavily in classrooms and on their teaching rounds.

ACT NOW

• Visit the Phenomenom website to see all of the resources that educate kids about their vegetables.