Editor's Note: With this post we welcome Marni Fogelson-Teel. Marni writes out of Virginia, and will be serving us some interesting tidbits on such topics as education, eco-celebrities, climate change in developing nations, food and more! Keep a watch for her next posts!
Reading stats about kids in the US today can be depressing: They watch more tv than ever, exercise a pitiable number of hours a week, and even have a lower life expectancy than their parents. Young children spend less time outside enjoying nature, and too many haven't ever even seen a vegetable that isn't fried, battered, or canned. While it would be easy to chalk up the youth of today as a lost generation, several leaders in food system security and the culinary world are teaming up to make sure kids become educated and interested in what goes on their plate and into their bodies.
Choosing not to rest on her organic, locally grown laurels, food revolutionary Alice Waters of Chez Panisse started her Edible Schoolyard program in the mid-1990s at a Berkeley middle school. The education doesn't simply stay in the garden, where the children learn about growing and harvesting organic vegetables and amending soil. The middle-schoolers also spend sessions cooking healthy and tasty recipes in the custom-designed Edible Schoolyard kitchen and supplement their hands-on learning time with classroom activities and lessons that combine math, science, art, and virtually every other subject with the environment.
Among a variety of achievements, the Edible Schoolyard boasts that it has provided free schoolwide organic breakfasts for its students during test weeks for several years and that the garden has expanded toinclude fruit trees and chickens.
Waters continues to provide support for the program, serving as a recognized and celebrated face for the Edible Schoolyard. Through her Chez Panisse Foundation, she has started several successful related programs including one on the Yale University campus, where the lucky student body can munch on locally grown, seasonal, and sustainable food at their dining halls.
While it remains to be seen whether these children can balk the growing trend of obesity as they grow up, Edible Schoolyard participants have at the very least been given the skills to grow and prepare healthy food and the knowledge to decide what they should be eating. By trusting that children will make good choices when given the right information and the experience, Waters puts a burgeoning hope in this growing generation.
Further Reading:
