Our expert guidance, groundbreaking curriculum, partnerships with equipment manufacturers, and ongoing Teach the Teacher support is just what you need to bring edible education into every classroom in your community.
We haven’t met, but I would be willing to guess that we share the same struggle. Your organization has been working tirelessly for years to establish community garden programs and bring edible education into the schools in your community but you continue to hit one hurdle after another. No money, no space, no one to run the program. No curriculum or lesson plans. No vision on the part of the schools for what’s possible.
Sound about right? Well, all of that changes. Right now.
We created the Edible Learning Lab, our groundbreaking garden education program, to help students realize health and wellness through the deconstructed food production process while developing craft skills that they can carry with them for the entire lives.
Every community should have an established garden program to educate kids and adults alike on the food production process. Community garden programs create stronger relationships between people and their food which impacts overall health. Furthermore, community garden programs often fill the need for fresh locally grown produce that might otherwise be unavailable.
Why our garden education program is the perfect fit
The Edible Learning Lab, centered on our robust garden education curriculum, compliments existing outdoor garden programs perfectly but can also be developed in any school as an indoor ag program. We provide the curricula and ongoing support to turn your garden into a classroom where soil management, composting, hydroponics, seed saving, and basic kitchen skills are explored, mastered, and used to reinforce competency in math, science, art, and all the other core disciplines that are imperative for students of all ages.
As a community organization, you already understand the need for such education especially with the youngest students. What we impress upon them today will shape their health, minds, and perhaps even careers for the rest of their lives.
We understand the struggle to launch garden education programs
The struggle to create a garden education program is real. Schools all across the country, the world in fact, have constantly shifted the method of educating our youth. Shop class, Home Economics, and the like have given way to standardized testing that measures anything but the knowledge and skills developed in the classroom.
As Matthew Crawford illuminates in his book Shop Class as Soulcraft, schools are turning out students for the knowledge economy rather than the skills economy.
“Craftsmanship entails learning to do one thing really well, while the ideal of the new economy is to be able to learn new things, celebrating potential rather than achievement.”
The struggle exists on several levels. When schools have an interest in a garden based education program, there is the struggle to win administrative support from the schools, find the resources to fund the initial program, and develop the requisite internal champions to carry the torch after the program is up and running.
Doesn’t it feel sometimes like you are pushing a rope uphill? We completely understand. And we have the services to help.
The one thing that we share is the understanding that manual skills and an appreciation for various crafts are essential for ascension from childhood to young adulthood. It’s imperative that kids establish a healthy relationship with food, learn to cook for themselves, and appreciate the natural processes that govern the world around them. Where else will they experience traditional trades and develop real life skills?
Doug Stowe nails this point perfectly on his blog, Wisdom of the Hands:
“In schools, we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement. Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract, and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged.”
The Edible Learning Lab changes all of that. It’s an immersive, get-your-hands-dirty environment where kids learn by doing. Why wouldn’t we want to see this type of garden education program in every school.