I am currently reading Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma. A thought occurred to me for a very interesting lesson/curriculum for our schools. K-12 school-wide project that examines the biology, chemistry, economics, politics and art of agriculture from an experiential perspective. After sending out a tweet with no response (I need to grow my network), I ran into an old friend on facebook who is working on a farm in WI. He pointed me in the direction of Growing Power Farm in Milwaukee, WI.
Growing Power's mission is to transform communities by supporting people from diverse backgrounds and the environments in which they live through the development of Community Food Systems.
One of their outreach projects is to do essentially what my idea suggests. Growing Power has developed school garden projects with two Milwaukee schools. One of these schools keeps track of their progress on this wiki, Karens garden (named after the school's former food services director that spearheaded the project). The products of the garden are eventually used in the school cafeteria and the experience gained by the students working on the garden is an important scaffold for curriculum goals throughout the school.
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
What books, websites, and technology tools would a school need to make this a transformative experience? Have you heard of any other schools that are doing this? How have they got started? Are there any political implications of such a program?
1 comment:
I am very interested in making this a reality this year. I have the blueprint for the area drawn up and am researching what it would take to be FDA approved so that the kids could eat the produce at lunch. Money and grant writing stand in my way! Let's make this happen! We could plant this spring!
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