Gardening for the Body, Brain, and Soul

This article talks about home gardening which is great, but school gardens can also be a way to get kids out in nature, asking questions, getting dirty, and learning.

Planting a garden can affect not only your child’s body but also their brain and soul. Source: Gardening with Kids: How It Affects Your Child’s Brain, Body and Soul via Gardening with Kids: How It Affects Your Child’s Brain, Body and Soul — The School Garden Doctor

STEM in Schools

I wrote this a couple of years ago on my other blog, http://www.spiceoflifeblog.com, but it actually belongs on this space.

   If you have a child in school these days then you surely have heard of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math.) It’s the big thing right now~ there are STEM schools,  STEM measurements, and people compare the STEM-ness of schools when making decisions about where their child will go. Personally, I’m wondering where creativity fits into science, technology, engineering, and math. It seems to me innovation is tied to creativity and we need to foster that in our children just as much as the other things. Not only that, but creativity gives people the space to appreciate art, music, literature, and all the things that still exist beyond our screens. Our kids will be proficient in computers, that’s a given, but do we really want to tie our futures so inseparably with modern technology? Has there really been nothing of use in the world up until the computer chip was invented? What about the natural world? Science seems centered on dissecting it, but what about giving kids the chance to appreciate it? Breathe it. Realize they live in it along with billions of other beings and need to think about that fact. An example of what I’m talking about is the fact our school district does not have art teachers. There are volunteer parents that go in and teach art to classes at most once per month, but often a lot less. Why are we teaching these kids that art in not that important? They have music and PE and library at least once per week, but art for some reason is not valued enough to have at least a weekly class with a trained teacher. This just blows my mind. Kids get so much out of art class and I’m not just referring to the kids who are gifted in it. When I go in and help with art lessons I’m always struck by the highly intellectual students who are astounded they can make something aesthetically pleasing with their own hands, and the hyper-active students who can focus on something that is truly their own, and the quiet students who love being able to work on something as an individual and not be overwhelmed with the constant group activities that are also so vogue in modern education. It gives students a place to pause and consider what art means to them, to recognize every single one of them has some creativity and how good it feels to express it, and to understand it is valuable to work on something purely for aesthetic reasons. These are just a few of things that I see falling out of schools in favor of STEM, and I’d like to propose a post-STEM environment focused on Creativity and Nature. Computers will be integrated in their lives more and more with textbooks changing into tablets, research done on Google, Kindergarteners giving PowerPoint presentations~ that’s all part of the modern world and I’m not trying to stop it, there just needs to be some focus on what goes on outside of a screen and perhaps inside of a head. Of course, I have to bring up the Edible Schoolyard Project as I so often do because it embraces nature and creativity both in such a beautiful balance, and in an increasingly teched-out world kids need to be reminded of the importance of these things. Isn’t education about expanding the mind after all…? It certainly can’t just be about learning how to use a single tool. Our kids are brighter than that and they deserve more.

Edible Schoolyard Concept in Brazil

Enjoy this lovely little article on how school gardens change kids’ opinions on eating vegetables in Brazil from Public Radio International. It seems to be universal that children who grow vegetables, eat vegetables. Let’s make this happen at every school, whether it’s a whole schoolyard garden or some containers around the buildings. This is so do-able and is one of those things has a multitude of positive outcomes far beyond the effort that goes into it.

 

Kids’ Ideas on Food and Bolivia’s Law

My sons planted our veggie garden last week on Earth Day. They enjoyed every dirty minute of it which was beautiful to see.

Then this weekend I had an experience which showed me just how confused kids can be on food and where it comes from. I was putting an ice tray with fresh water back in the freezer when my youngest came over for some ice. I told him to get a different tray because the one I had in my hands was just water and needed to freeze. His face brightened with amazement as he said, “Oh! That’s great! You can make your own ice!” I asked him where he had thought the ice in our trays came from and he said, “I thought you bought them.” Aha.

In other news, and it turns out this is old news from 2010 but I just now heard about it; Bolivia passed a law ensuring the Earth has rights, and declaring it a living system. Brilliant, right?! It seems like a no-brainer and yet it is considered the first such law. The law also states that the earth is of ‘public interest’ and has individual rights as a living system which are to be defended by human representatives. Congratulations to Bolivia for their bold and forward-thinking move. I do hope other countries are following their example.

School Garden Helpers

Since I’m working at starting an edible garden at my sons’ school, I’ve been doing some research and have unearthed some fabulous finds to share. One great find: there is an organization called Farmer Frog that will help with any aspect of the process. This is so needed and I’m so impressed there are people dedicating their lives to making school gardens possible. Take a look around their website to see all that they do and why. A good place to start is their Goals page. I’ve also contacted several local schools with gardens to inquire about their process and ask advice and what has become exceedingly clear is that these people are dedicated! I got long emails back, answering every question I asked and many I hadn’t thought to ask. If anyone out there is thinking they would love their school to have a garden but don’t know where to begin, I highly recommend reaching out to nearby schools because they can tell you what grows best, what the county/city can possibly provide, what local organizations are out there that can help, plus a whole lot more. That is how I found Farmer Frog. One of the garden coordinators linked them into our email conversation because they are a part of their school garden story. You can find schools near you by going to The Edible Schoolyard Project’s website and looking around your zip code. January is the perfect time to be planning for spring…inside. On a computer. Brr.

 

 

Articles for the End of the Year

 

If you find yourself with some down time this holiday season, here are a few articles that the Knight Owl would like to share.

First, a children’s book list for “future foodies”: http://foodtank.com/news/2013/12/fifteen-books-for-future-foodies These are great picture books about real food, school gardens, and farming.

Next, an article about how fast food is linked to poor academic performance: http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/12/21/fast-food-kids-learning.

And to end on an upbeat note: Good News for Mother Earth: Solar, Wind Power Becoming Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels | BillMoyers.com.

May your new year offer time for reflection and your best dreams realized. Happy Holidays.

Nutrition Education in Schools

Photo by Lani Vanderlip

How about some good news today…? There is a program that will teach 4th and 5th graders about nutrition in their very own classrooms, and it is free. This discovery made my day and I immediately sent it to the school principal at my sons’ school so I hope to be able to write up a review all about it soon. If you are in the Seattle area and want someone to come to your school to teach kids about food, reading food labels, and to make vegetarian chili with them in their classroom (and who doesn’t?!) then check this out: Pure Foods Kids Foundation. Seriously, the fact this exists makes me warm and giddy inside.

Fed Up, The Movie

My sons and I watched Fed Up together and we will never look at food the same way again. I highly recommend it, especially for showing kids who are inundated these days with advertisements for processed food all day, every day. After the movie ended my youngest worriedly said, “Don’t get any ideas…” because he knew exactly what I’d do~ start reading every label for sugar. The amount I found on labels was staggering despite the fact I have long been a thoughtful, label-reading shopper and only buy from natural foods stores. It’s seems like such a battle to maintain a healthy lifestyle sometimes, especially for our children. I do think the movie missed the opportunity to highlight the comparison between current human activity levels with the past and even downplayed the role of activity and exercise too much, but their emphasis was on the food industry and they made that point well. Once again a school garden would be a great way to get kids involved with real food, to understand the difference between fresh and processed, and to try different things than they might try at home. Plus being outside, moving around, working in nature cannot be over-emphasized. These kids are growing up in a digital world and we need to actively get them out in the real world, eating real food, and understanding what it takes to have healthy bodies and a healthy environment. It’s all connected.

Gardens for Humanity

Relatives of mine just introduced me to this amazing project in which they are both involved called Gardens for Humanity. It is in Sedona, AZ, so if you are near there you should check it out because there are incredible ways to get involved, and if you aren’t near Sedona you should still check out what they are doing because it is inspiring. I am especially impressed with the way they incorporate local professional artists in their garden programs who work with students to do art inspired by the natural world. This paragraph from their website says it so well:

“This program is central to our mission and serves as a model for how we develop other educational programs tied to school gardens. We provide activities that connect children to the environment, to develop awareness of where food comes from, and to give children the tools to make healthier choices for themselves and the environment. Art, as the means of environmental and garden education, helps students develop greater self-expression, creativity, experimentation, problem solving, in addition to enhancing their emotional relationship, appreciation and sense of responsibility towards the natural world.” (From Gardens for Humanity’s website on the Celebrating the Art in Earth page.)

Imagine every student being exposed to this kind of thinking, acting, creating, and honoring~

Kids CAN get dirty

I’ve been thinking about STEM lately, and it’s all well and good to embrace modern life and the technology needs it entails, but I resent it taking over so much of our children’s education. In response to STEM, I’m actively encouraging my kids to be CAN-do students~ Creativity, Activity, and Nature. We aren’t going to get far without creative thinking, including art and all artistic pursuits, and our kids desperately need to actively move their bodies~ that’s an obvious one for many reasons but one that maybe not everyone knows is that the mind and body are intricately linked. Moods, emotions, thought processes, ability to focus, and more are all linked to the physical body and movement, not to mention health, coordination, bodily awareness, etc. And Nature, which one would think STEM would cover but more and more Science seems to be the world of laboratories, computers, and robotics. Call me old-fashioned but I like to see my kids with dirt under their fingernails.