School Garden Studio Bursaries

Every month in Alberta, food banks see nearly 173,000 visits across the province—and more than a third are children. While donations of nonperishables help, the root causes of food insecurity are where we can make a lasting difference from the ground up. Strong food literacy programs in schools are a powerful way to do just that.

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Learning Where Our Food Comes From

To help fight food insecurity in our province, an important piece of education for our students is learning how our food gets from production and growing to our dinner plates. That includes understanding the impacts our society has on the changing climate. Through this information, our youth feel empowered to play a role in food sustainability.   

Together, we can remove barriers for schools to ensure Alberta students—no matter their location or background—have access to this formative learning experience. And what better way to learn than the hands-on experience of growing food right in their own classrooms.

The School Garden Studio and Bursary Program 

AMA’s School Garden Studio provides teachers with the tools, resources, and community connections needed to run their own food literacy and school garden programs. This online program is free to join and includes a virtual library filled with tutorials, tools, curriculum guides, lesson plans, and more.  

Heading into the 2024/2025 school year, the Alberta Teachers’ Association reports that classrooms are facing chronic underfunding. These budget constraints place enormous pressure on teachers and severely limit opportunities for experiential learning outside the standard curriculum.  

That’s one of the reasons we started the bursary program in support of the School Garden Studio. The bursary is designed to remove barriers and improve access to food literacy programming in the classroom.  

Bursaries are granted in the amounts up to $2,500 and are intended to cover costs related to equipment or tools required to start a classroom garden. Alberta teachers, principal, and Alberta School councils are encouraged to apply for the bursary program.