Hands down, my favorite thing about my children’s school besides a quality learning environment is their organic horticulture class.
Not only do they learn about all aspects of organic gardening from prepping the soil to planting and composting, but they also help care for foraging goats and free ranging chickens.
The classes take turns collecting the eggs and the children even get to take them home to eat, which is no doubt quite the positive learning experience for any families that might regularly purchase conventional store eggs.
One week, my oldest child learned to fish with a net in the freshwater lake that borders the school campus. He was taught to cast the net properly as well as detangle the fish he managed to catch. He was so excited to tell me all about it in the car ride home that day and it was very cheering to hear his stories.
When it comes to planting, the children get to choose which seeds they wish to plant and care for. Two of my children brought home beautiful bunches of lettuce when Fall harvest time rolled around. We had fun determining which dishes would work best with the greens they proudly brought home.
To the right is the giant ginger plant grown and tended by my oldest. I can’t wait until he brings it home and we can make some amazing homemade ginger ale with the roots!
My question is, why can’t all schools have a program like this? It seems to me that teaching children to care for the land and learn how to produce their own food is as necessary and important a life skill as learning to read and write.
Just me.
While I’m sure my kids do not fully appreciate what they are learning in organic horticulture right now, I also feel quite sure that in the future, the memories of what they have learned will serve them well be it in the form of an easily pulled together backyard garden or possessing the know how to raise a few chickens to supply the family with quality eggs.
It gives me great peace of mind knowing that my kids already know so much more than I did at their age about producing their own food.
With the quality of processed foods continuing to decline and becoming ever more dangerous with each passing year with the unrelenting proliferation of GM foods and chemical additives of all kinds in our food, these types of community based skills will become increasingly more important in coming decades for simple maintenance of personal health, something today’s generations seem to take for granted.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
It sounds wonderful.
It’s why we ditched life in Denver and moved to rural Idaho last year. And yes, we homeschool.
Yes, I know not everyone can.
I was a public school teacher for years and at least in Colorado I know one reason it wasn’t done was simply that most of the growing occurs in the summer.
I know this information comes a little late to this topic, but I watched this short vid today and wanted to share it with people. I know that just recently one of the foodie bloggers posted something about the school system of today vs homeschooling (or something like that) but I couldn’t find it so chose to post this here. John Stossel talks with Michelle Rhee, who is the former Supt. of Schools in WADC (I think that was her title). Explains a lot about why public schools are in a mess and how much progress we haven’t made in many areas regarding education.
http://libertypenblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/video-john-stossel-government-schools.html
Give it a minute to download. Good information here in about 8 minutes!
I’m glad the school is teaching students how to grow their own food. But where are the parents? I’ll never understand why people have given up gardens. Now we are expecting teh schools to do everything. So glad I homeschool.
This is absolutely wonderful! This must be a private school. I hope we have something like this For my 3 year old grandson when it is time!
This is an ideal situation. I believe kids can learn so much from the patience it takes to grow plants, and then there are the facts that they do grow (impatient or not) and then they taste so great when they are fresh.
We live in a rural area where we are surrounded by farms..and we have a farm too…We are raising our 8 year old grandson and his school teaches farming and planting vegetables, etc..
My son’s school has an organic garden and the students compost. Each grade has a spot to plant their own seeds. Schools don’t have programs like these b/c these kinds of programs are not on the state standardized tests.
I’m also curious about what type of school this is- a public school? Or private?
Many of our area public charter schools are doing things like this with great results both for learning about gardening and connecting it to where our food comes from and more nutritious school meals.
Unfortunately, in our district they are completely opposed for some strange reason- shutting down plans for school gardens that parents would take responsibility for, for fear of food allergies and attracting rodents 🙁 Pretty far-fetched reasoning, IMO, esp. when parents are willing to do the work of making it happen and get the materials donated.
This is amazing! May I ask what the school name is?
Hi Sarah,
Where in Florida do you live and what is the name of the school?
Best regards,
Jennifer