At Madar Farms, we believe in the transformative power of education to equip our community with the knowledge and opportunities to make more sustainable choices. We are committed to environmental stewardship through our indoor farming methods that help drive local food and water security; this commitment extends to our mission to increase access to sustainability-focused education in schools.
We developed and launched Sustainable Futures, a localized, hands-on, easy-to-integrate sustainability program for K-12, designed specifically for UAE teachers and students passionate about growing food and exploring sustainable production and consumption. The program explores a broad range of topics across the sustainability agenda, using food as a universal springboard: the future of food is central to all humanity, unites across communities, and affects every aspect of sustainability. Food production is both a driver, and victim, of climate change, and pressures on our food system will only grow as our global population increases. We cannot afford to underestimate the importance of food systems to a sustainable future; the good news is that food and agriculture have the biggest scope for change. This is why our program pays close attention to food and how it relates to environmental stewardship.
We’ve worked closely with UAE teachers, students, and school leadership to understand how sustainability teaching and learning can be embedded into existing curricula. Sustainable Futures supports multiple subjects and disciplines, providing schools with a modular ‘menu’ of individual lessons, with original classroom resources, learning engagements, and community challenges. The program includes indoor hydroponic gardens and weekly, step-by-step guides for hands-on learning through growing in the classroom.
To develop the knowledge, skills, and competencies to prepare young learners to meet the changes this century will bring head-on, we must first imagine what that future might look like. While we may not be able to predict today what jobs may exist in 2050 and beyond, we can look at the challenges and opportunities our world is facing to inform how we prepare them for this future. International goals and priorities have set out a roadmap for humanity’s social, environmental, and economic sustainability. In parallel, the 4th Industrial Revolution has brought a proliferation of new approaches and technologies that are changing the status quo and are offering new ways for us to co-exist more sustainably with our planet. By exploring the intersection of new technologies and social and environmental drivers, we can build a picture of what tomorrow’s global citizens need to learn today.
Sustainable Futures addresses the urgent need for us to do things differently to protect our planet, its resources, and its inhabitants. It explores topics ranging from our ecological footprint, food miles, and climate refugees, to soilless food production in the desert and how we might feed ourselves in space, to satellites, IoT, energy, water, plastic, to food literacy and civic engagement, to answer the question: how can we create more sustainable futures for us all?
Register your interest in Sustainable Futures here!