Adding Classes in Gardening to Elementary School Curriculum

[Dover]

There are so many benefits to such programs, from exercise for your child to nourishment and useful skill development, development of a healthy relationship to the Earth and natural processes...etc. AND it's not exactly a new idea!

Of course school is not the only venue - parents can make this a home project which makes for a very positive one-on-one time with their child. Slow down and taste the vegetables!



_____________________________________________

Students Skylar Valdez, left, Liliana Moreno and Franchesca LeBaron carry a basket of onions they pulled from the school garden, where the students work as part of their curriculum. 'We're setting lifelong patterns with their food choices,' says gardening teacher Rebecca Vore.


Growing young minds
Charter school harvests an education by letting kids get their hands dirty

By Addie Broyles
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The food could not have been any more local. More than 100 diners were there not only to enjoy food eaten where it was grown, but also to support a charter school that specializes in integrating food into the student curriculum.

The four-course meal was impeccably fresh. Baby squash, zucchini and carrots, all picked just feet away, filled light, homemade ravioli topped with browned butter. The crisp bite of green garlic brightened the beef consommé, and the care with which farmers Erin Flynn and Skip Connett raised their pig was evident in the sausage, pork rib cube and melt-in-your-mouth pork terrine served with swiss chard.

Donated produce and pork from Green Gate Farms, along with onions and other ingredients that Austin Discovery School students picked from the school's garden just days before Saturday's dinner, produced a meal fit for supporting an unusual school. The Discovery school is just down the road in far East Austin from the farm.

Flynn and her husband Connett own Green Gate Farms and send their two children to the school. "The point is to eat at the source," Flynn says. "It really does affect the taste." ...cont'd

http://www.austin360.com/food_drink/content/food_drink/stories/2008/05/0521discovery.html



______________________________________________

Planting a Seed
Local schools see students not only eating all of their vegetables but growing them, too
BY MICK VANN

Back in the day, in generations before the baby boomers, people had an intimate knowledge of the farming process: They knew where their food came from, and more than likely, they had a friend or relative who was a farmer or rancher, especially in Texas. There was no question of eating seasonally; it was the only option (unless you count produce that was in a mason jar). Victory gardens during World War II were considered patriotic, and even in the cities, there was one on every vacant lot.

Baby boomers, at least those who didn't spend all of their time in a city, can easily recall relatives or even their parents having gardens. They probably had a friend in the hippie days who grew an organic garden. There is still a connection for their age group between farm and table.

Most Generation Xers and their juniors rarely have a clue where their food originated. Unless their parents are enlightened gardeners or they live in a rural area where farming or ranching still happens, there is no season for a particular food, and all food groups are fast, processed, and microwaveable (or cooked in a vat of bubbling oil).

It's this disconnect between farm and plate that led Alice Waters, of Chez Panisse Restaurant and Cafe fame, to organize the Berkeley community around the Edible Schoolyard (www.edibleschoolyard.org) at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School. She saw a huge paved parking lot as a spot for a possible 1-acre organic garden with a kitchen classroom, where the kids could cook what they had grown. She had a vision of kids learning about sustainable agriculture, seasonal eating, ecoliteracy (www.ecoliteracy.org), and environmentally conscious thought and action. What she created, with the help of a whole community of like-minded supporters, has become the pilot project that most of the programs in Austin and around the country strive for. Every person interviewed for this story sang her praises and considered her an inspiration...cont'd

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:458413



Other classroom nature projects:
http://www.kidsgardening.com/growingideas/PROJECTS/june04/pg2.html


Announcing the Youth Garden Grant 2008 Winners

NGA and The Home Depot are delighted to announce the winners of the 2008 Youth Garden Grants. These 150 exemplary school and community projects engage children and young people as learners, explorers, leaders, and nurturers in outdoor garden settings. Congratulations to them all!
Winners are awarded a curriculum/book package from NGA and gift cards to The Home Depot (50 winners receive $500 cards; 100 receive $250 cards).

http://kids.garden.org/grants/winners.php?grant=GR_YG08&s=126







College Students Demand "Organic" Fare -

Across the U.S. college students are asking their schools to serve whole and organic foods, purchase locally so as to support local food sheds, and conduct the business of food in an environmentally sustainable manner. Some schools are trying to accommodate the students, but are not always having an easy time of it.

The schools and students face the same difficulties we all do when we try to eat healthier with an eye toward sustainability. Inevitably, we face choices. Sometimes we are asked to decide if we want organic vegetables imported from overseas or locally grown produce raised with pesticides. What if all the ingredients in our favorite artisnal delicacies are not all organic or loca? Do we give them up?

Read the article in Advertising Age (must register):
http://adage.com/article?article_id=125114

[KSinTX]

1. Our science teacher had the kids plant a small garden

It was a great deal of fun for them but not incredibly fruitful. But those fifth-graders nursed their puny plants with an intensity that was remarkable. At the end of the semester, they took everything they'd grown and made a rather thin vegetable soup. It was perhaps one of the best soups I'd ever tasted - considering the source!

[Dover]

2. Awww...how sweet. I wonder if the idea of gardening at the school will grow?

So interesting that it was a science teacher that initiated it. As one of the articles in the OP points out, there are so many things that gardening opens up to learning, not least of which is science. What's best about this way of learning is that it is experiential rather than rote learning and questions, born of true curiosity by the children, are a teacher's dream.
And as always, teachers often find themselves to be students as well in the process so it's always interesting, and one doesn't have to be a master gardener to teach it.

[hippywife]

3. A friend of mine

is very involved with community gardening up in the city and she, along with several others, are bringing gardens to as many schools as they can. :hi: