Weeds are everywhere and people like to taste new things, so why not combine the two?  Here is an article that explains how we did it at Rutgers University as part of an outreach project on a community day.

Article title: Eat Your Weeds: Edible and Wild Plants in Urban Environmental Education and Outreach

Authors: Lauren Frazee, Sara Morris-Marano, Jennifer Blake-Mahmud, & Lena Struwe

Plant Science Bulletin 62(2) [2016]  doi: 10.3732/psb.1500003

Abstract of article: Edible weedy plants are ubiquitous in human dominated areas and provide opportunities to combat plant blindness and improve citizens’ local ecological knowledge in formal and informal urban environmental education (UEE) programs. Weeds exemplify intriguing ecological, cultural, and ethnobotanical concepts, making them ideal resources for hands-on, socially relevant, and personally meaningful educational activities. Cosmopolitan, spontaneous, weedy plant species are often freely accessible for use in the curricula of many grade levels in varied educational venues as well as in extra-curricular activities for all learners, given that proper safety and legal precautions are taken. We developed and hosted a UEE outreach activity based on edible weedy plants at Rutgers University as part of an annual, university-wide event attended by over 80,000 people in the spring of 2014. Incorporating edible weeds into such programs teaches plant identification skills and
ecological appreciation in settings that are “close to home” for most people.

color pdf (13 pages), for download below

Article: Eat Your Weeds: Edible and Wild Plants in Education (459 downloads )