Planting A Seed - Gardening Classes In 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, providing one-on-one time with their child. Slow down and taste the vegetables!



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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



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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





The Edible Schoolyard -

The Edible Schoolyard, in collaboration with Martin Luther King Junior Middle School, provides urban public school students with a one-acre organic garden and a kitchen classroom. Using food systems as a unifying concept, students learn how to grow, harvest, and prepare nutritious seasonal produce. Experiences in the kitchen and garden foster a better understanding of how the natural world sustains us, and promote the environmental and social well being of our school community.


Children learn about the connection between what they eat and where it comes from, with the goal of fostering environmental stewardship and revolutionizing the school lunch program.

Linking garden and kitchen activities with classroom lessons using ecological principles, students develop a deep understanding and appreciation of how nature sustains life.

Since the inception of The Edible Schoolyard, the school garden movement and the demand for fresh, organically produced foods has spread nationally. We are at a threshold of growth in the shift toward sustainable food systems – these resources may guide your involvement.

http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/homepage.html


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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

Kid's Gardening Website - http://www.kidsgardening.com/


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

[Mojambo]

1. Jefferson would be ecstatic about this development. n/t

[Chipper Chat]

2. My 6th grade class devoted class time to gardening.

This was in 1951 and probably was fallout from the WW2 victory gardens vis a vis economy concerns.
Our Indiana school had central outdoor vestibules where we planted lettuce, radishes, onions, etc:
We also sold flower & vegetable seeds door to door to support the cost. I dont really remember what happened to the crops when they matured (probably ended up on the teachers' dinner tables!)

[Dover]

3. Did you enjoy it?

What are your memories of it?

Here is a great google image page of the old Victory Garden posters and other pics.
http://images.google.com/images?q=victory%20garden&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

Maybe with transportation and food costs rising people will once again feel compelled to
plant community, school and home gardens:

Victory Garden
http://www.revivevictorygarden.org/

[Chipper Chat]

4. Next to recess it was the highlight of the day.

We worked in teams of two and I think you had to have a B average to have the "privilege" of going to the garden area for a half-hour or so. Only got to do it once a week. I still remember my 'garden mate' was Joe Kress. We felt special because we were UNSUPERVISED. Wow. And no security cameras in those days. Privacy was privacy.

[Dover]

5. I can imagine that would be a very grounding experience too.

No pun intended..lol! I know it is for me. There is nothing quite so important to my sense of well being than gardening. It resets my inner clock and slows me down, connects me to natural rhythms and stimulates all my senses.

[Dover]

6. Children's Gardens Mushrooming!

Children's gardens mushrooming
Educators find secrets to successful children's garden programs by asking young experts.



Only children really fit through the arch and in the tiny mushroom house (with its glowing roof),
part of the Camden City Garden Club's Children's Garden exhibit.


ITHACA, NEW YORK — Researchers have discovered the secrets to enhancing youth participation in school- and community-based garden programs. A 3-year study entitled “Greener Voices” proves that children will engage in learning more readily when given responsibility for decisionmaking and planning.

Children’s gardens have mushroomed during the past two decades. Gardens are popping up in schools, communities, public venues, and informal settings. Despite recent interest in gardening with children, little credence has been given to what children think about the experience: what interests them, how they may be involved in decisionmaking and planning, and how they can benefit from their involvement. “Adults make many assumptions about children and gardening, and instead of enlisting the creativity and innovative thinking of young people, they often involve children in the more mundane tasks of planting, weeding, and watering” notes Marcia Eames-Sheavly, lead researcher and Senior Extension Associate at Cornell University’s Garden-Based Learning Program (http://www.hort.cornell.edu/gbl).

Researchers set out to understand how children and youth engaged in project planning and to gain a better grasp of the constraints faced by adults who teach and design gardening programs. “We learned that ongoing efforts are needed to assist sites and the adult leaders who work there, including strategies to expand thinking about the capabilities of children and youth, to help children and youth adjust to new roles, and to identify ways for younger children to increase their participation”, added Eames-Sheavly...cont'd

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-05/asfh-cgm051908.php

Website (and Teachers Guide) - MY FIRST GARDEN.......................


http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/firstgarden/

[LWolf]

7. I gardened with my students every year

until I moved to my current position. It was science, it was math, it was health. It was writing and speaking. It was community.

I haven't gardened since moving north because the winters are so hard here that the only real time to grow anything is over the summer, when we are not in session. I have a really nice indoor garden rack that we could use during the school year, but our classrooms are so small that there is literally no place to put it.

Give me a room that has space, and I'll be right back at it.

[Dover]

8. I can imagine you doing that LWolf. I'll bet you're a wonderful teacher.

I know school budgets are always tight, but I wonder...if the school & parents got behind it...
if a company might donate a greenhouse to the school, or a fundraiser might provide one.
A garden club/group might donate the plants to get started, as those organizations love to contribute to educational programs that perpetuate the love for gardening.
If you read my initial post, there are some links for how to get such a class going and also one where the sponsor, Home Depot and the NGA, give out awards. Perhaps contact with them might provide some ideas or solutions for how to go about it.

Anyway, where there's a will....there's a greenhouse. I'm always surprised and delighted at how willing people are to help with such positive projects...particularly if they benefit children.

[LWolf]

9. I'm getting that itch again,

just reading your post. I did apply for several grants for gardens in my old district. I never got any, so we did what we could on a shoestring.

A greenhouse around here would be pricey; not just for the greenhouse itself, but to heat it. We sometimes go days, and even weeks, at a time around here where the temperatures never rise above freezing.

You reminded me, though, that this year we had an extra classroom. It was used for various extra art, health and other classes. If I can't fit my garden rack in my classroom, I might be able to fit it into the extra room. If we still have it. Their getting ready to condemn that wing and tear it down. I'll have to talk to my admin about this.

Thanks for bringing this back to my attention!