Category — Children

Cambridgeport School students show their dirtied hands from planting colorful chard, peppers, cabbages and rosemary into a 7-foot growing frame for the school’s display on living edible walls at the CitySprouts School Garden Celebration, to be held Saturday at the Tobin School. Photo by Kristen Emack.

Cambridgeport kids bring ‘edible walls’ to CitySprouts celebration Saturday

By Monica Velgos
Cambridge Day
October 1, 2010
Monica Velgos is a parent at Cambridgeport School, a member of its garden committee and a contributing editor to Food Arts magazine

Excerpt;

One of Cambridgeport School’s greatest assets is how snugly it fits in its Area IV neighborhood, surrounded so closely by the homes of many of its 300 students. But last spring, when the school’s garden committee sought space on the grounds to grow vegetables, that closeness presented a monumental challenge.

Spots large enough had too much building shade, spots filled with light were too close to play equipment. A few parents who supported Walk/Ride initiatives protested any bike racks being moved, and teachers couldn’t spare even one sunny parking space, given the extreme parking problems they already faced. The only choice seemed to be up, but not on the roof. On the walls.

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Seedlings flourish in an aeroponic growing machine at St. Philip’s Academy in Newark, New Jersey. Photo by EcoVeggies

It can produce about 20 pounds of produce per harvest

By Todd Woody
New York Times
September 20, 2010

Excerpt:

On the rooftop garden at St. Philip’s Academy, a private school in Newark, New Jersey, students tend plots of everything from broccoli and beets to sweet corn and spaghetti squash.

But since August they have also been helping to farm arugula, chervil, fun jen and komatsuna in a machine installed in a fourth-floor science classroom that grows crops without soil or sunshine.

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Seniors Monica Johnson (from right) and Myesha Bell, junior Timashay Hood and senior Chakena Robinson collected vegetables on Thursday in the garden outside Hogan Preparatory Academy. Photo by Garvey Scott.

One in five schools nationwide now have a garden

By Joe Robertson
The Kansas City Star
Sept. 20, 2010

Excerpt:

Hogan Preparatory Academy’s urban farmers are gathered at school, talking about why their nutritional garden is so important.

Just then, Exhibit A unwittingly passes by. It’s a fellow student.

In her hands: a bag of Cheetos Flamin’ Hot Puffs.

They know the siren song of junk food and how hard it can be to even find healthful food in their neighborhoods and in their homes. Who would have thought they could grow it themselves?

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Urban Green: USF Garden, Pt 2 from Madhouse Muse on Vimeo. Urban Green tours USF’s campus garden and meets David Silver, Associate Professor, USF Media Studies, one of the innovative educators behind USF Garden Project.

The Garden Project
Videos by Madhouse Muse

The Garden Project is an innovative learning community for first-year students and rising juniors and seniors of any major. This community experience offers a rare opportunity for students to engage in community design and gardening by cultivating the 1/4- acre organic garden on campus. Through active involvement, students learn about climate change, water rights, food security, and social and economic justice as related to food production. Facilitated by faculty and staff, students take coursework together and live in designated space in the residence halls (1st year students only).

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Naps Williams gets to grips with a pony at Butts Farm during a work experience day with the Young City Farmer programme. Photograph by Sam Frost.

Farmers for a fortnight

By Louise Tickle
The Guardian
7 September 2010

Excerpt:

The Royal Agricultural College (RAC) in the leafy Cotswolds isn’t where you’d expect to find urban youngsters from areas of disadvantage around the UK, but these are here for the RAC’s Young City Farmer two-week summer school .

Agricultural settings are dangerous places, Thomasin-Foster, a lecturer in farm mechanisation, explains. So, if an accident happens in the countryside, how long does the group reckon it’ll take for an ambulance to arrive?

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US First Lady Michelle Obama harvests vegetables from her garden June 4, 2010 at the White House. The First Lady recruited chefs from across to join her anti-obesity campaign and help schools serve healthier, tastier meals. Mrs. Obama is calling on the chefs to partner with individual schools and work with teachers and parents to help educate kids about food and nutrition. She said healthy meals at schools are more important than ever because many children get most of their calories at school. AFP Photo by Paul J. Richards.

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Students from the Bancroft Elementary School weigh vegetables during the White House Kitchen Garden harvest party, on the South Lawn of the White House. Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton.

Peoples’ Garden School Pilot Program

USDA Office of Communications
08/25/2010

WASHINGTON, Aug. 25, 2010 – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that USDA will establish a Peoples’ Garden School Pilot Program to develop and run community gardens at eligible high-poverty schools; teach students involved in the gardens about agriculture production practices, diet, and nutrition; and evaluate the learning outcomes. This $1 million pilot program is authorized under the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act. A cooperative agreement will be awarded to implement a program in up to five States. To be eligible as project sites, schools must have 50 percent or more students qualifying for free or reduced-price school meals.

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In the school garden of Brooklyn PS29, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, joined by Rachael Ray, explained that “School gardens encourage more young New Yorkers to eat healthier diets and help them understand where their food comes from.”

San Diego 4th Grader: “I like to play indoors better ’cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are.”

By Daniel Bowman Simon
People’s Garden NYC
The Huffington Post
August 20, 2010

Excerpts:

By 1925, 99 New York City public elementary schools reported school gardens. In 1930, 244 gardens were reported, and that number jumped 24% to 302 in 1931, when the New York Times reported 65 Acres of School Gardens under cultivation.

But over time, most of these acres of gardens vanished, as the general pressures of a growing population and teacher parking lots took priority over the myriad benefits that these gardens offered their respective communities.

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Actresses Ali Larter, Amy Smart and Emmanuelle Chriqui attend the Environmental Media Association and Yes to Carrots Garden Luncheon at The Learning Garden at Venice High School on May 26, 2010 in Venice, California.

Environmental Media Association and Yes To Carrots teamed up for “The Garden Challenge”

By Sharonloves2garden
Garden Life Blog
May 27, 2010

My husband Bruce and I visited a very special school garden at Venice High School in western Los Angeles, California. We were invited as the guests of Kathy Kellogg. Her family’s company, Kellogg Garden Products, has had a long-standing commitment to introduce and encourage youngsters to garden. This past year, the Environmental Media Association (begun by concerned Hollywood celebrities), Yes to Carrots company and Kellogg Garden Products began an ongoing partnership to support organic gardens and greenery in urban schools.

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Kihei Elementary School

By usury
Via Huffington Post
July 21, 2010

More than 540 Kihei Elementary School students from 27 classrooms at all grade levels gather to plant, maintain and harvest fruits and vegetables in their newly expanded 10,000 square foot edible schoolyard. The gardens, designed and installed by South Maui Sustainability volunteers, serve as an outdoor classroom where teachers integrate their required curriculum with garden activities. “[The students] seem to remember concepts taught, covered in the garden better than those covered from a textbook,” says one teacher about the program. “It has supported our science standards and has given the children hands-on learning experiences that are SO extremely valuable!”

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New RHS report says school gardening boosts child development; teaches life skills and makes kids healthier and happier

28th June 2010

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHA) is today urging school gardening to be high on the education agenda and recognised as a key teaching tool.

New research by the RHS Gardening in Schools – A vital tool for children’s learning published today shows for the first time, the enormous impact gardening plays in a child’s wellbeing, learning and development.

Dr Simon Thornton Wood, Director of Science and Learning, RHS, said, “As the new coalition government considers a new approach to the primary curriculum, we hope they acknowledge the striking conclusions of our research and that gardens enable a creative, flexible approach to teaching that has significant benefits.

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Grow It, Try It, Like It!

Printed: June 2010

Grow It, Try It, Like It! Preschool Fun with Fruits and Vegetables is a garden-themed nutrition education kit for child care center staff that introduces children to: three fruits – peaches, strawberries, and cantaloupe, and three vegetables – spinach, sweet potatoes, and crookneck squash.

The kit includes seven booklets featuring three fruits and vegetables with fun activities through the imaginary garden at Tasty Acres Farm can be used to introduce any fruit or vegetable! It also has a CD-ROM with Supplemental Information and a DVD with Cool Puppy Pup’s Picnic and Lunch Parties.

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Micheltorena now has a tasty edible vertical garden with strawberries, tomatoes and tons of other amazing veggies and herbs! The kids instantly got excited to help plant veggies and learn about plants!

What is a Woolly School Garden?

A Woolly School Garden is everything a school needs to create an outdoor garden classroom and begin teaching gardening and nutrition and includes:

Woolly Pockets (50 Pockets as shown above)
Do-it-yourself hardware & instructions
Premium soil for edible gardening
Organic seeds
Planting chart
Gardening manual

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WDIV-TV Meteorologist & Station Scientist Andrew Humphrey shares the story of a Detroit Area mother and her students urban farming in Detroit, Michigan.

City Mission Academy gardens

It was wet, it was cold and it was dirty, but City Mission Academy students had a fun time yesterday learning to plant flowers and vegetables in our new community garden. For many it was their very first time gardening.

“I liked getting your hands dirty,” said third-grader Demetrius Green. “I can’t wait until I eat my tomato,” said fellow classmate Angelica Little.

We are very excited about the garden and what it brings to our school and our northwest Detroit community. We are using it to teach Brightmoor children and families how to garden and to expose them to healthy food choices and eating habits that can improve their lifestyle. We are also using it as a tool in the classroom.

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On Day 2, Richmond High School was equally blessed with the construction of 6 wooden planter beds, the planting of six fruit trees, and the raising of a native plant garden. Each wooden bed spans 32 feet in length, 4 feet across, and nearly 2 feet deep!

Job Opportunity, teacher – Environmental Science II: Urban Agriculture and Food Systems

Kennedy High School (KHS) in Richmond, California is looking for a Biology (or possibly Chemistry) teacher who will also teach 1 section of Environmental Science II: Urban Agriculture and Food Systems. Candidates need a teaching credential in biology or chemistry. This is an exciting opportunity for an energetic teacher to help build a cutting-edge urban agriculture program.

The Urban Ag and Food Systems class is a new course developed and supported by a local non-profit—Urban Tilth. Urban Tilth helped Kennedy High students and staff put in a 4,000 square foot market garden and a 1,500 square foot edible forest.

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Short news clip from KTXL Fox 40 News in Sacramento, California about a farm company teaching people how to maintain crops and create their own food in an urban environment.

Past, Present, and Future of the group

Soil Born Farms Urban Agriculture Project started in 2000 as a small urban organic farm located in Sacramento, California. Our story began with two young and inexperienced organic farmers who had a dream and lots of ambition. Wanting to reconnect urban dwellers with healthy food and where it comes from, Marco and I put a hand written note in the mailbox of a local Sacramento resident asking if we could grow on her land in exchange for produce. The next day a deal was struck, and Soil Born Farms was born. Seven seasons later, filled with hard work and lessons learned, Soil Born has grown and matured beyond expectations.

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At the Community Food Security Coalition Press Conference, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing talks about Urban Farming in Detroit.

Welcome to the 5th National Farm to Cafeteria Conference, May 17-19, Detroit

While it’s easy to see just the 60,000 vacant lots scattered across Detroit, a closer look reveals that hundreds of residents are “Taking Root” revitalizing their neighborhoods and building communities through local agriculture. They are providing access to fresh fruits and vegetables to their family, friends, and neighbors in a city that is frequently referred to as a food desert. The citizens of Detroit are embracing the local food movement and ensuring a just, equitable food system for all through the creation of beginning farmer classes, farm to institution programs, and gardening workshops.

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Kid’s program teaches rice cultivation. The Lanna village envelopes a terraced rice paddy farmed by blue-shirted farmers and resident water buffalo. (The harvested rice is donated to the local temple.) See larger photo here.

Chiang Mai’s Mandarin Oriental resort is landscaped with rice paddies

Lanna Kids Property Tour

Kids can explore the resort’s grounds by horse-cart or trishaw and make visits to various interesting places, such as the Buddhist prayer hall and the spirit shrine. The highlight of the excursion will be a visit to the paddy fields where they will meet the resort’s resident family of water buffalos.

Kids will be offered a change into farmer’s hats, pants, shirts and boots and wind their way through the rice paddies to the shady field hut where they can sit and ride a buffalo and learn the special technique of planting rice.

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Baltimore City high school seniors working during the summer at the Great Kids Farm.

Great Kids Farm Yields Great Taste

Fall 2009
The BCF Edge
The Baltimore Community Foundation Newsletter

Excerpt:

When Geraci first viewed the overgrown, abandoned, city-owned farm behind Catonsville’s strip malls and fast-food joints he saw only promise. He had had success in New Hampshire as a co-founder of the farm-to-school fresh food movement, and he envisioned the land as it could be, full of life that children would help create.

In short order, Great Kids Farm became a place of bustling activity. A donated herd of goats cleared the land for vegetable crops and an orchard. Fallen trees in a wooded area were inoculated to produce shiitake, chanterelles, and oyster mushrooms. Two of three existing greenhouses swung into full production using techniques from water-based hydroponics to worm-enriched he vermiculture.

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The Think&EatGreen@School Project: Community University Collaborative Project on Food Security in Vancouver Schools and Institutional Adaptations to Climate Change

An interdisciplinary research team from the Faculty of Land and Food Systems and the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia has led the formation of a food and environment related research project recently awarded a $1 million Strategic Research Grant for Community-University Research Alliance for Canadian Environmental Issues from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC). This project involving Vancouver schools hopes to enrich school students’ experiences connecting food, health and environment and to assist schools to have a lighter impact on the environment.

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