Category — Children

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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CNN Video. May 6, 2010
St. Phillips Academy. A school in Newark, New Jersey, is teaching sustainability, healthy living and respect for the environment.

St. Philip’s Students Cook What They Grow

From The Trumpet
St. Philip’s Academy
Fall 2009

St. Philip’s Academy students are trading in their uniforms for aprons to cook in Newark’s first teaching kitchen. Our EcoSPACES program (“St. Philip’s Academy Cultivates Environment Sustainability”) continues to grow in ways that promise to inspire and engage students. The teaching kitchen, our newest addition, encourages students to explore the origins of the food they consume and understand the role of locally grown produce on environmental sustainability. Each month, students prepare ingredients from their rooftop garden plots, transform them into meals and, finally, eat what they started from seed.

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The FFA chapter at W.B. Saul High School teaches inner city youngsters all about farming and brings new recruits to those planning careers in agriculture. See video report here.

America’s Heartland – Episode 513 – Urban Agriculture

Philadelphia, the birthplace of America, the city of brotherly love. But, right in the middle of one of the largest cities in the country is a high school whose students have a heart for the heartland. When these teens leave their classrooms and books – it’s all about cow pens and brooms.

That’s daily life at W.B. Saul High School, a farm school so to speak with one of the largest FFA chapters in the country. Students spend half the day in class – and for the other half – it’s all ag!

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Rebekah Boley, Brianna Boley, Nicole Saxton, Christopher Saxton and Jennifer Saxton harvest food to be donated to a local food pantry through the Hidden Lake Gardens Junior Master Gardeners program. Photo by Karen Gentry.

Junior Master Gardeners program

By Sue Van Fleet
GateHouse News Service
Apr 27, 2010

Excerpt:

“Kids love to play in the dirt,” says Stephen Boley. “At least my children love to play in the dirt.”

And once spring hits, many an adult is ready to do the same, as they prepare garden beds, visit greenhouses and get ready to enjoy one of America’s favorite pastimes.

But involving children in gardening can be more of a challenge, says Karen Gentry, education coordinator and horticulture educator at Hidden Lake Gardens in Tipton, Mich. Part of her mission is to get kids less focused on technology and more tuned to nature. The benefits can extend beyond better nutrition and exercise, she says, as they often grow up to be good stewards of the land.

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Tena Kebena, urban agriculture in Addis Ababa

In 1993 (Ethiopian Calendar, 2000 Gregorian Calendar) two youths named Alemayehu Akalu & Desalegn Firew established the Tena Kebena & Ginfle Cleaning Association (TKGCA). Their motivation for this project was seeing all of the problems, pollution, and rubbish in the local area. They also noticed there were no other youth organizations and they wanted to help. Soon the organization became 10 members who were all committed to helping the local community in various ways. Unfortunately, despite the wonderful intentions, the organization was forced to cease functioning after 3 years due to lack of resources and support.

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Photo by Steve Kinderman. McKenzie Knight, seated with sign, a sophomore FFA member at Eau Claire Memorial, gave third-graders from Roosevelt Elementary School an up-close look at a large farm tractor on display at the high school.

Wisconsin schools look at urban farming

By Janie Boschma
Leader-Telegram
April 15, 2010

Farming isn’t confined to farms anymore. Growing food, and in some cases raising animals, is becoming increasingly popular in urban areas, including the city of Eau Claire, as evidenced by a recent proposal to allow city residents to raise chickens.

The National FFA Organization is an American youth organization known as a Career and Technical Student Organization, based on middle and high school classes that promote and support agricultural education. The organization, founded in 1928 as Future Farmers of America.

More photos here.

Children’s gardening book

By Annie and Veda
As told to Justine Kenin
Photographs by Becky Lettenberger
Tenley Circle Press, Ltd.
May 1st, 2010

(Washington D.C. April 6, 2010) Tenley Circle Press announces its latest children’s book to engage hand, eye, ear, taste bud, nose—and imagination. We Grew It – Let’s Eat It! is a story by D.C twins Annie and Veda who learn about gardening, and growing their own food.

NPR’s Justine Kenin chronicles the story by her twin 5 year-old daughters as they learn about the White House vegetable garden and wish for a garden of their own. How do you garden if you live in a city apartment? Watch the sisters and senior gardener Ida work and play their way through planting, tending, and harvesting in a neighborhood Community Garden. Then comes the fun of preparing and eating simple, tasty, homegrown food.

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13 – 2 X100 ft rows of growing power.

By jnicholl
Center for a Livable Future
March 8, 2010

Excerpt:

This past weekend, I witnessed hundreds of volunteers working in a very tangible way to take back the food system for a community. The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said, “the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” This was a stride. Two high schools in Richmond, Calif in the span of one weekend built urban school farms at their respective school sites. Supported by Urban Tilth http://www.urbantilth.org, those students, teachers, parents and community volunteers laid the infrastructure and built the capacity to grow significant amounts of local produce in Richmond.

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BK Farmyards: Developing a 1-Acre Youth Farm – achieves funding goal

NEW YORK
Associated Press
February 28, 2010

NEW YORK – Students at one Brooklyn high school won’t learn about farming from textbooks in the near future. They’ll learn directly from the soil. Students at the High School for Public Service in East Flatbush plan to break ground in April on a 10,000-square-foot vegetable farm on their campus’ front lawn. The first crop of vegetables could be harvested in June.

Principal Ben Shuldiner says the goal is to teach the skills and science behind farming. Fresh produce will also be offered to the community. Senior Elliot Bowman says it’s difficult to find fresh produce in the neighborhood.

Urban farming collective BK Farmyards will design and operate the farm, which is expected to cover the school’s entire 1-acre yard in four years.

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