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At Edward Milne Community School in Sooke, B.C., students line up for lunch fare that wouldn't look out of place at a decent restaurant: Moroccan fish stew, Thai fire salad, home-baked pita stuffed with roasted vegetables, tzatziki and chicken - delicious and a bona fide bargain at $3.25 a serving.

Not only is everything organic and locally sourced, but the produce is plucked from the Vancouver Island school's own garden.

It's a lunchtime model that is now being replicated at many schools across the country. The idea is to provide children with the opportunity to understand where food comes from: They learn to cook and eat the food they have grown and tended from seed.

As more B.C. residents seek out local, sustainable and healthy foods, a groundswell of foodies, gardeners and educators has begun clamouring for more school-based projects designed to help children understand the issues behind the food they eat.

Andrea Carlson, chef de cuisine at the award-winning Raincity Grill and at the forefront of the campaign to support regional produce, is currently working in classes at Champlain Heights Elementary.

"I'm passionate about bringing gardening into the inner city," she says. "We start with seeds at the beginning of the term, and then harvest and cook the vegetables at the end."

Last year, Merri Schwartz, former pastry chef at C Restaurant, launched the Growing Chefs program in Vancouver to pair local chefs with elementary schools. Students in grades 1 to 3 plant and harvest an indoor vegetable garden as part of the program.

Growing their own vegetables prompts children to try new foods, Ms. Schwartz says. "More children than you would imagine really love peas."

At Edward Milne, the three-year-old garden has been successfully integrated into the wider school curriculum.

"We use the garden in science, math, culinary arts," says teacher Mike Bobbitt. "The construction class built the shed and greenhouse, and the special-needs students are in charge of the herb garden."

The garden at Edward Milne was started with a $15,000 grant from the FarmFolk/CityFolk Society, raised with proceeds from the society's annual Feast of Field fundraiser.

Parent Anne Boquist is certain the edible schoolyard had a positive impact on her recently graduated daughter, Alison, whose environmental science course used the garden extensively.

"She has continued to garden and develop a very deep interest in edible native plants and heritage varieties," says Ms. Boquist, who is looking forward to her son Eric entering the same program in the fall.

Now, the School Garden Network, a group spearheaded by Vancouver slow-food activist Christina Beaudoins, is looking to bring programs into Vancouver high schools.

Slow food, or Terra Madre, is an international movement dedicated to the promotion of local, sustainable food; each chapter is asked to help create and support a slow-food school project in its area.

The SGN hopes to become a resource for schools, offering garden design and help with the logistics of operating throughout the year. Funding will be sought through the Evergreen Learning Grounds initiative.

"The hope is that eventually the gardens would be sustainable," says Ms. Beaudoins. "Students might bring their produce to farmers' markets, for example, or eventually become employed in agriculture. There is huge potential here."

Another slow-food activist, TV producer Nick Versteeg, recently offered every school in British Columbia a free copy of The Edible Schoolyard, a 25-minute DVD he produced that shows how Vancouver Island's Sunrise Waldrof School constructed its garden and also includes a segment on Edward Milne.

Mr. Versteeg, whose programs include The Next Great Chef, is looking for private and government funding to produce a series of DVDs and lesson plans for schools. Local celebrity chefs John Bishop of Bishop's and Robert Clark of C Restaurant are backing his efforts.

"This has to be done," Mr. Versteeg says. "We have to show that we care enough about the next generation to educate them properly about food.