Planting a Seed - Introducing Gardening Classes into School Curriculums

[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!



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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





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

[trof]

1. You bet! Have you read "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"?

I highly recommend it.

[Speck Tater]

2. I went to high school in L.A. (suburbs) in the early 1960's

and we had gardening classes. The school had a greenhouse and several garden plots on the school campus. I wonder why that kind of thing disappeared?

[Dover]

3. Probably several reasons

Perhaps in part the large commercial growers might have essentially severed the gardening movement planted during the WWII Victory Garden period and the earthy values of the hippy generation gave way to yuppy consumerism and two working parents, school curriculums became packed with other activities, technology and t.v. drew kid's interests, etc.

[Dover]

4. 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/

[bhikkhu]

5. Thanks for the great idea.

Or at least the reminder of how things should be...my younger daughter is 8 and some of our best times are spent in our vegetable garden. She has planted her own this year, with a variety of flowers and veggies she picked herself.

There is nothing better than weeding and puttering around the garden with an interested kid, talking about soil and fertilizer and bugs and all the different varieties of veggies, and all the things that go into growing a fine garden.

[Greyskye]

6. The public Montessori charter school...

...that my son has been going to, and that my wife teaches at, has a 'Garden of Learning'. The kids really seem to enjoy their time working in the garden, and eating the results. :D

They've had this program in place for at least 4 or 5 years at this point.