1. Operation Learn & Thrive: Growing Healthy Habits in our San Diego Children
Thomas Langan
On a spring day that is warm and sunny, fourth-grade teacher,Judy Lee,and her students walk to
their school garden for a lesson that will be led by UC San Diego Center for Community Health (CCH).
This lesson is one of many under Operation Learn and Thrive (OLT), a three-year grant funded by the
Department of Defense that serves five elementary schools with high percentages of active-duty military
families. Under this grant, UC San Diego CCH provides 55 hands-on lessons to over 1,171 students each
month. Prior to OLT, these schools did not have a garden and nutrition education was limited. This
project is multidimensional: family wellness engagement nights and professional development for
teachers is incorporated into the grant along with monthly lessons in the garden.
OLT is administered by San Diego Unified School District’s Office of Children and Youth in
Transition and has created school gardens at Chesterton, Angier, Miller, Hancock and Mason Elementary
Schools. These flourishing school gardens provide a myriad of benefits for students and teachers.
Research has stated that children who are familiar with growing their own food tend to eat more fruits
and vegetables,and are more inclined to continue healthy eating habits through adulthood. The garden
lessons satisfy teacher’s requirements to integrate the new California Common Core and Next Generation
Science Standards, with each lesson linking to at least three standards. School gardens also have an added
bonus: students get physical activity while using tools, planting and creating compost piles.
Through these lessons, students have gained confidence to garden at home. Judy Lee,a champion
teacher at Angier Elementary, says that her students have absorbed themes from the garden lessons above
and beyond her original expectations. Lee explains, “Some of my students have started planting a garden
at home and have even encouraged their parentsto buy organic produce froma local farmers market.”
Lee has stated that she has also been able to connect the garden to math standards she is required to teach,
having children measure plants to learn about fractions and decimals.
These garden lessons embrace the school’s students and teachers through integrating and
supporting healthy lifestyle behaviors. Children are able to plant a seed,care for it and eventually taste
what they grow in the garden. OLT aims to increase healthy food habits and the garden is a perfect setting
for trying new fruits and vegetables with peers. As Lee’s students reach the garden, they see beautiful
spinach, radishes and strawberries growing that they helped plant a month prior. Excitement is buzzing
and students can be heard exclaiming, “look at the spinach we planted!It’s huge! Can we taste it?!”UC
San Diego CCH garden lessons are growing healthy eating habits in our San Diego children that will last
a lifetime.
(Morris & Zidenberg-Cherr, 2002)
(Bell & Dyment, 2008)