Feature: School gardens take root
March 23rd, 2009 by Besha Rodell in Food & Life, News
In Ms. Wiggins’ fifth-grade class at Cascade Elementary in Atlanta’s West End, it’s coming up on state testing time. The kids are weary and antsy, having spent the past few weeks enduring lessons on facts and figures to prepare for the tests that will determine, among other things, the school’s level of funding. But at 11 a.m. on Tuesdays, it’s time for a different kind of lesson. On this particular Tuesday, using veggies they’ve grown themselves in the school’s courtyard garden, the kids will be making soup. Continue reading the food feature.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:15 am
There was a good article in this month’s Gourmet magazine about, among other things, the former garden/farm at the Lakota Sioux Red Cloud School in South Dakota. The garden used to put food on the cafeteria tables, but no longer, because the schoolteachers’ farming knowledge has been lost over the years, and nobody really has the time or inclination to do it. The article also mentioned that supplying buffalo meat–a school staple in earlier times–from the tribal herd a few miles away would be way too costly. And crazier yet, it would interfere with the federal School Lunch Program. Check out the article.