Category — Children

Image: Lim Rosen

Cultivating Failure

by Caitlin Flanagan
the Atlantic Magazine
Jan/Feb 2010

Excerpt:

Imagine that as a young and desperately poor Mexican man, you had made the dangerous and illegal journey to California to work in the fields with other migrants. There, you performed stoop labor, picking lettuce and bell peppers and table grapes; what made such an existence bearable was the dream of a better life. You met a woman and had a child with her, and because that child was born in the U.S., he was made a citizen of this great country. He will lead a life entirely different from yours; he will be educated. Now that child is about to begin middle school in the American city whose name is synonymous with higher learning, as it is the home of one of the greatest universities in the world: Berkeley. On the first day of sixth grade, the boy walks though the imposing double doors of his new school, stows his backpack, and then heads out to the field, where he stoops under a hot sun and begins to pick lettuce.

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A rendering of what the Edible Schoolyard at P.S. 216 is to look like.

By KIM SEVERSON
Published: January 19, 2010
New York Times

THOSE who believe trends start on the West Coast and are perfected on the East Coast might add to their argument a garden planned for an elementary school in Brooklyn.

This summer, supporters will tear up a quarter-acre of asphalt parking lot behind P.S. 216 in the Gravesend neighborhood and start building the first New York affiliate of the Edible Schoolyard program, developed by the restaurateur Alice Waters of Chez Panisse.

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Independence High School’s Agriculture Department

By Jane Coaston
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
01/17/2010

ST. LOUIS — Kara Dalton is attempting to control chaos. It’s Monday at the teacher’s pre-veterinary science class at Gateway Institute of Technology high school, and that means baths for the dogs, cats, bunnies, mice, hamsters, guinea pigs and one elusive ferret named Riley.

On one side of the room, three students are grooming a terrier named Shadow. In the walk-in shower room for larger animals, two students hose down a black Labrador retriever. Other students are attempting to corral and bathe a large black cat. Fluffy the bunny has his cage cleaned and his toenails trimmed.

Gateway Institute of Technology, 5101 McRee Avenue, is among a growing number of suburban and urban high schools nationwide offering agricultural and animal science classes. Such classes are also offered at Clyde C. Miller Career Academy in St. Louis and Edwardsville High School, among others in the region.

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Although there is no story to accompany this graphic in the 1941 edition of the comic, it is a wonderful promotional image, which would have reached millions of kids during the war. Superb!

The Garden of Happiness

By Erika Tamar (Author), Barbara Lambase (Illustrator)
Harcourt Children’s Books, 1996

From Publishers Weekly:

Tamar, the author of such tough-minded YA novels as Fair Game, turns dewy-eyed in her first picture book, an idealistic tale about a community garden in a rundown part of New York City. A studiously multiethnic coalition of neighbors claims an empty lot, and there Mrs. Willie Mae Washington plants black-eyed peas and greens “like on my daddy’s farm in Alabama”; Mr. Singh raises valore, as he did in Bangladesh; etc. Young Marisol, pining to grow something, too, plants a seed she finds on the sidewalk and waters it faithfully. She is ecstatic when a sunflower finally blossoms and then grief-stricken when, at the end of the season, it dies.

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Full Circle Farm in Sunnyvale

Karina Rusk
December 21, 2009
KGO-TV San Franscisco

SUNNYVALE, CA (KGO) — Hands on learning for school kids is nothing new, but in Silicon Valley amid all the high-tech companies and housing development, there is something you do not see a lot of in the Bay Area anymore — a farm. It is giving kids a whole new appreciation for what they eat.

Full Circle Farm in Sunnyvale is an independent non-profit organization. It is a rare working farm in the heart of Silicon Valley, but it is also an outdoor classroom for a new generation of gardeners.

“I really like farming, being in the sunshine and having fun,” said student Cindy Lenhu.

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Trailer ‘Grown in Detroit’ from Mascha Poppenk on Vimeo.

Grown in Detroit

by Dutch filmmakers Mascha and Manfred Poppenk
(Highly recommended film! Mike)

Imagine urban teens, pregnant, and farming a decaying city. They’re working, learning and planning for a better life for themselves and their babies. It’s not a movie script. It’s the subject of a new documentary, Grown in Detroit, by Dutch filmmakers Mascha and Manfred Poppenk.

While Detroit may have a reputation as one of the most impoverished and dangerous cities in the U.S., this award winning documentary exposes a different side; the side about residents who are emerging by using their resource and creating unique solutions.

“This isn’t the typical, negative Detroit story. It’s a powerful, uplifting story about rebirth of the city,” Said Mascha Poppenk, documentary filmmaker. “It focuses on the future by featuring the efforts of teens and their educators. The message they are teaching us applies to all in the world, not just the residents of Detroit”

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Photo by Luxist. The marzipan Kitchen Garden is complete with veggies that were actually grown during the late summer/Fall season, with eggplant, radishes, carrots, cabbages, peas, cauliflower–and tiny handwritten signs that have the names of the vegetables on them. See larger image here.

Marzipan Kitchen Garden vegetables

By Eddie Gehman Kohan
Obama Foodorama
Dec 2, 2009

White House Executive Pastry Chef Bill Yosses has been as busy as an elf in Santa’s workshop–for months. In addition to a loaded schedule that includes making the thousands of sweets for all the White House holiday events (17 parties, 11 Open Houses)–and for private Obama family consumption–Yosses has also had a whole architecture project going on for the past six weeks, during the creation of the annual White House Gingerbread House, a holiday tradition that in the past was brought to stunning heights of creativity by former White House Executive Pastry Chef Roland Mesnier, the only chef to last for 26 years in the Executive Mansion.

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Millennials, who are generally considered to be a group of participatory, positive, technologically-savvy 18- to 30-year-olds

By Alissa Walker
Fast Company
Dec 8, 2009

Excerpt:

Waxman sought to have a group of students physically reclaim a strip of public land bordering the school’s street, which California College of the Arts (CCA) shares with homeless residents as well as day laborers. Waxman believed they could intervene agriculturally on the block–which was littered with hypodermic needles–by growing enough food for the neighbors. “We were three transient populations brought together by a piece of toxic land that held the potential for building community and for addressing a food issue,” she remembers. Dubbing the project FARM (Future Action Reclamation Mob) she encouraged students through posters and other campaign methods to rally behind the cause, using language she believed would appeal to the Millennials.

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Link to larger map here.

High School Students To Spearhead Organic Farm
Students Will Tend To Garden Near Arlington High School

The Indy Channel
November 4, 2009

INDIANAPOLIS — Community, education and healthier food choices are at the center of a new urban garden planned for Indianapolis’ northeast side.

The Devington Green Acres Farm will occupy a 3.5-acre plot just east of Devington Shopping Center and Arlington High School, and will be the city’s largest sustainable urban organic farm, organizers said.

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FAO/UN film (in Spanish) about urban agriculture in Bolivia involving young people. This film shows an FAO initiative which is improving city dwellers’ lives by helping them grow their own food.

“Sow and Grow” poster, Cleveland Public Schools Horticulture program.

Feeding Cleveland: Urban Agriculture

Cleveland State University Libraries presents The Cleveland Memory Project

A recurring theme in 20th century Cleveland that continues to the present day is that during difficult economic periods communities of people have come together to  raise food crops on city land. The working men’s farms during the Great Depression, the victory gardens during World War II, community gardens established during the years of urban renewal, and the present day market gardeners of the local food movement, all provide examples of revivals of urban agriculture as a response to economic difficulties. 

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Soldiers of the Soil: A Historical Review of the United States School Garden Army

By Rose Hayden-Smith
4-H Youth Development and Master Gardener Advisor,
UCCE-Ventura County
WINTER 2006, 20 pages

“Every boy and every girl should be a producer. Production is the first principle in education. The growing of plants and animals should therefore become an integral part of the school program. Such is the aim of the U.S. School Garden Army.”

With these words, the federal Bureau of Education (BOE) launched the United States School Garden Army (USSGA) during World War I. The USSGA represented an unprecedented governmental effort to make agricultural education a formal part of the public school curriculum throughout the United States.

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First Lady Michelle Obama is shown in this undated publicity photograph as she plants a garden on “Sesame Street” with characters Big Bird and Elmo. “Sesame Street”, the world’s largest informal children’s educator, celebrates its 40th birthday on November 10, 2009 with Obama’s appearance on the show.

Michelle Obama and Sesame Street: 40th anniversary season

LOS ANGELES (Reuters)
Sep 29, 2009

U.S. first lady Michelle Obama is to kick off the 40th anniversary season of the children’s TV show “Sesame Street” with a segment encouraging kids to plant gardens and eat healthy food.

Obama, who is planting a fruit and vegetable garden on the grounds of the White House, will appear in the November10 season debut of “Sesame Street” — the educational show for kids that is broadcast in more than 120 countries around the world.

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Beatrix Potter, ‘Benjamin Bunny nibbling lettuce leaf’ © Frederick Warne & Co. 2006

The Real Mr. McGregor’s Garden

Written by Victoria and Albert Museum

“Before she married in 1913, Beatrix Potter would accompany her family on three-month summer holidays in the countryside. In 1903 the Potters rented Fawe Park, a large, comfortable house in the Lake District, on the edge of Lake Derwentwater. Here, Potter was able to escape outdoors, sketching the terraced gardens that sloped down towards the lake and the beautiful fells beyond. The kitchen garden, with its greenhouses, cold frames and potting shed was a favourite retreat and inspired the setting for The Tale of Benjamin Bunny (1904).

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Holyfield said, ‘I will give you 40 acres for the solar farm and another acre for the children’s garden’ — continues,

“In addition to this milestone solar project, an additional acre of my land will be used to create a working organic garden to teach neighborhood youth the importance of going green. The organic garden will be installed in cooperation with local community groups and administered by the Evander Holyfield Foundation.”

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Larger image here.

No information about this garden. Perhaps a children’s hospital. (Mike)

1900-1914
Elizabeth Peabody House
Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Children gardening in the community vegetable garden at the corner of Charles and Poplar Street, near the Elizabeth Peabody House in Boston’s West End neighborhood.

Five more wonderful photos of the children on the next page.

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A trailer showing Zell and Krist growing, revitalizing, and transforming the Artan Garden into a Creative Cultural Centre in North Bay Ontario.

Artan Garden

Mr. and Mrs. Artan came to North Bay with their family over 35 years ago. Mr. Artan built a cottage at the end of Judge St. The foundation is still there in the back parking lot. Mr. Artan came with many skills; his talents in stone masonry, cement, and permacultural design came from his long career as a General Contractor, at the age of ten, Artan was laying ceramic shingles on Mediterranean homes. Artan Contracting was a thriving business and employed many in the community.

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From the book: Marigold Garden

Pictures and Rhymes by Kate Greenaway
Engraved and printed by Edmund Evans, the first edition was published in 1885 by George Routledge and Sons, London & New York.

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