A presentation of the Fresh Fruits and Vegetables: A Centerpiece for A Healthy School Environment Training. Day 1 Nutrition Education and Greening the School. www.healthyschoolenvironment.org
72. What do school gardens look like? They come in all shapes and sizes. Taken from “The Power of School Gardens” presentation. A training component of the Creating & Sustaining Your School Garden Training Modules.
Deb introduces Acrostic. Deb sets context for workshop (FFVP origin of HSE) Deb introduces Whitney/John
Vision: Work together to create a “cultural basket” in which, wherever students go – class, lunch, recess, lockers, etc. – healthy living is encouraged. How do we fit into this? Raise your hand if you …
Breaks, lunch, restrooms, snacks/tea/coffee Meeting norms: Cell phones, share floor, different perspectives Intro flipcharts. Value of sharing ideas with others. Time at end to self select and problem-solve.
Write onto post-it. Share at table group. Add to these throughout the day as thoughts come to mind. At each break, you’ll have a chance to add them to posters. Share out a 2 highlights.
Deb
Why incorporate a garden? Garden-enhanced nutrition education has been shown to be TREMENDOUSLY EFFECTIVE! More positive results with nutrition PLUS gardening, more than nutrition education alone lasted 6 months after
Similar design: NO, NG, & Control Great numbers!
All of this research, and more, can be found at www.csgn.org.
Resources for getting started with garden-enhanced nutrition education … Go over 1-page bibliography together, giving a brief blurb on each publication in slideshow. The first two are free downloads and related to the garden. The posters are not garden enhanced but a nice free resource – Other free nutrition resources such as HOTM, Power Play and MyPyramid are not garden enhanced and will be described later.
We do a lot of comparative taste tests. Who here has done these with youth? Great way to engage the senses and ask the youth’s opinion.
Who here is familiar with HOTM? How do you use it at your site?
Assign each table group a section to read, discuss how they might use it at their school site, connect to other things their already doing, extend it, etc. Share out.
The primary purpose of schools, of course, is to teach academic content: math, reading, science, etc. In today’s educational climate especially, with the focus on closing the achievement gap, it is important that anything we do in class support students’ academic achievement.
Here is an example of one set of lessons from Kids Cook Farm Fresh Food, and a handful of state content standards that are addressed. Notice: Not just science!
CFAITC is a non-profit organization that has produced several resources aimed to support gardens and agricultural connections in the garden, and they have done a remarkable job of connecting their materials to state content standards. Introduce CFAITC rep.
" Growing Good Kids - Excellence in Children's Literature Awards " Program. Lists over 60 books for 4-12 year olds. This award recognizes a select group of children's books that are especially effective at promoting an understanding of and appreciation for gardening and the environment. HOTM lists over 100 books for primary and secondary grades that connect to monthly produce. CFAITC has hundreds of books in a searchable database for primary – secondary grades that connect to ag literacy. Read a few excerpts!
Demonstrate sorting by mystery criteria with volunteers. Groups sort seeds by various “mystery” criteria and then have someone guess the criteria. Brainstorm together how seeds are different? Similar? Seeds are a very healthy snack, they give us all that energy that they have packed inside! What are some seedy snacks? At lunch, have some snow peas!
Welcome back! Share a HSE highlight.
Now we’ll talk about greening school grounds: Compost, planting, and waste reduction.
School district food service managers constantly look for new and better ways to meet the nutritional needs of their students while cutting costs and minimizing overhead expenses. Improving integrated waste management practices is one way a school district’s food service department can increase overall efficiency and save money.
The pie chart shown in this slide shows a typical breakdown of waste in a school by weight. As you may note, over 30% of waste disposed in this model is organic material from both landscaping waste and cafeteria food waste. This gives you a bit of context regarding how waste management can really be a key component to an efficient food service program.
DJUSD Audit 2001 Three elementary schools Costs per school/year are excluding labor (even more with) $32,490 was the projected savings for all the elementary schools to implement RISE Program—savings pay for RISE coordinators at each school.
CA Integrated Waste Management Board has established components of an effective “WASTE MANAGEMENT strategy for school sites: PREVENTING WASTE. Instituting salad bars or ways students can choose (less waste) Encouraging low waste lunches from home: reusable containers; pack-it-in/pack-it-out ZERO WASTE consciousness (maybe leading to policy) 2. REUSING WHERE POSSIBLE Offering unopened/uneaten food to those who need or want it Finding opportunities to give away excess food within the community “ Good Samaritan” law http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/reduce/food/foodmain.pdf http://www.epa.gov/organicmaterials/pubs/food-guide.pdf http://www.epa.state.il.us/p2/green-schools/green-schools-checklist.pdf – page 23
As with anything you purchase, you want to get the most for your money. So when purchasing for food services, it is important to think about the life-time cost of the product It may be cheaper on the front end yet end up costing you at the back end. E.g., Petaluma—chipping machine. Chips up paper & they use it in the garden. Many items we purchase will eventually be discarded. The amount of packaging we buy, whether toxic, reusable, recyclable, compostable, or made of recycled content, all depends on decisions made when we purchase the item. There are several waste reduction considerations to take into account when purchasing food service items for schools; here are listed just a few. Is the product recyclable or compostable Can reusable items be purchased instead of disposable ones? Is there an option with less packaging? Will some of this product spoil before it is all used? Is there a less-perishable product that is available in bulk? Are there recycled or other environmentally preferable products available? For example, lunch trays: The use of a new biodegradable and compostable lunch tray made from bagasse - the dry, fibrous residue remaining after the extraction of juice from the crushed stalks of sugar cane. I read that these trays cost about 7 cents each — 3 cents more than the polystyrene servers. http://www.chefann.com/blog/archives/618 In May 2007, the Mountain View-Whisman School District stopped using styrofoam lunch trays in favor of reusable plastic trays, which serve the same purpose--without all the waste.
The food service area generates many materials that can be recycled. Recycling includes the collection of recyclables and the transport of the materials for processing. In addition to potential gains from avoided disposal costs, recycling may also result in additional revenue for the school. It is important to find out what recycling opportunities exist in your school district by checking with your city or county recycling coordinator, refuse hauler, and local recycling companies. Recyclable food service commodities often include corrugated cardboard, aluminum and tin cans, glass containers, and some plastics.
Composting inedible food scraps from a food preparation or dining area, except meat and dairy products, can be done on-site or taken to a composting facility that is permitted to accept food scraps. Composting yields a rich soil amendment that can be used in gardens and landscaping and saves money usually spent on soil conditioners and fertilizers. In addition, composting programs complement school garden program efforts, (both of which serve well as supplements and support to classroom instruction). For example, St. Ignatius High School in San Francisco is separating out their pre-consumer and postconsumer food waste along with paper towels, biodegradable utensils, and yard waste for off-site composting. For additional details, see the City of San Francisco Recycling Program and other food scrap reduction case studies . Vermicomposting is the practice of using worms to transform non-meat or non-dairy food scraps into a nutrient-rich finished product called vermicompost. In a school setting, a vermicomposting system can set the stage for a variety of interdisciplinary activities that can utilize school cafeteria waste for the worm bin, provide a variety of interesting experiments, and can culminate in a school or classroom garden using the finished product. In Union City, California, four 3rd grade classrooms formed a yearlong partnership with the East Bay Depot program called "Project Create," which used vermicomposting as a part of a service learning experience to raise student awareness on the importance of recycling and the ability to produce a useful product for the school garden.
Many school districts do not realize the choices they have with respect to contracting for waste management services. There are different opportunities for school districts when making arrangements for refuse collection and disposal, and for recycling services. School districts can save money through effective refuse and recycling collection/hauling contracts. Sequoia Union High School District, San Mateo County, was able to save $50,000, increase the recycling rate, and reduce contamination by switching waste management service providers. By understanding the range of services that local haulers provide, a school district can often obtain increased services at a greater value to the school district.
This is a great science and ecology lesson. There’s also a nutrition message tucked in here: All those nutrients are cycling from plants into the soil, from soil into new plants, and from new plants into our bodies! Explain how to play. Hand out bingo cards, a scoop of worms, and tweezers/mags.
There are CDs of the Let’s Get Growing Videos for folks who are really digging in at their school sites. They are also all free and downloadable at www.healthyschoolenvironment.org.
When planting, seed packets and planting guides give you important information about seasonality, spacing, etc. You have one of these for Northern CA in your handouts, and there are more on the website.
Before planting with kids, it can be nice to map out your bed, either on paper, or right into the soil with trowels. For example … Break into 2 groups to plant into boxes.
Think about something you would like to discuss or hear ideas on while we have all of these minds together in one room.
Have people walk to the poster they are most interested in discussing. Break into groups of about 6. Discuss, brainstorm, prepare to present in 30 minutes. At 3:30, have each prong group share for 5 minutes max.