This is Groundbreakers' newest educational program that is growing in popularity. It combines outdoor and place based learning using local wild food as the focus for cultural and ecosystem experiential learning. Groundbreakers Facilitators bring K-7 classes out to local forests to teach about wild plants and foods through sensory exploration. In the outdoors students learn to identify plants, forage, prepare, cook and eat foods from our wild spaces.

Groundbreakers Wild or Wild Foods program started in the fall of 2017 with Muheim Elementary students venturing along several local forest trails to collect and create edible treats like wild cranberry syrup and rose hip tea. Since then, Muheim, Telkwa, Walnut Park, and Heartwood Elementary schools have gone ‘wild’ with multiple trips to make everything from stinging nettle pesto pasta and cattail salad to spruce tip tea and birch syrup crepes.

We are grateful for the support of the Kassandra Trust for helping us start Wild Foods, and for the ongoing support of Wetzink’wa Community Forests Corporation that enables us to partner with schools to provide Place Based Learning opportunities through hands-on food and outdoor education experiences.