Category Archives: Think&EatGreen@School

We were sitting down over some granola bars in Agora when Raisa Ramdeen began to tell me about her group project for LFS 350. She is in group 27 working on one of the many Think&EatGreen@School projects, this one specifically located at Tyee Elementary School. The objective of their project is garden management planning, which will include creating cold frames and a mini crop rotation plan. A cold frame is a transparent-roofed enclosure that protects garden beds in the winter from the harsh weather but still allows sunlight to be admitted through the transparent roof. Cold frames help extend the growing season; this will help extend the outdoor learning experience for students at Tyee Elementary. There are currently 8 beds at the school, one for each division.

As we continued to sip on warm cups of green tea Raisa shared with me her enthusiasm for the work that herself and her group will be doing next Wednesday, November 7^th. They will complete their work by assembling the cold frames with the students. “We are enjoying our project as we get to gain experience in school garden planning and apply concepts which we have learned in the LFS course series” she said. Are you excited to find out what will be growing at Tyee Elementary? Hopefully lots of fresh greens that will inspire the students to think and eat GREEN at school!

-H

The food system is a frequently used term in dialogs and discussions about health, food, nutrition and the community. It includes all processes used to feed a population. This is what group 23 has done with the story of bread; using bread as the study case to demonstrate the infrastructure involved in the food system. Two workshops have been conducted at Tyee Elementary School for 6^th and 7^th grade students and a third will be facilitated within the next two weeks to complete this Think&Eat@School project. Students were introduced to the story of bread, grain production and how it’s farmed, harvested and made through 5 different activities. These activities included milling, nutrition fact tables and different grains. Part of group 23’s approach and methods of collecting qualitative feedback about these workshops is allocating time for students to create mind maps in groups. Group 23 reported that most students knew a lot more than expected about the food systems but a certain group of students had some feedback that was different from all other groups in the 6^th and 7^th grade at Tyee elementary school. When asked what food means to them, this group responded with names of fast food chains and other unhealthy food choices. It is interesting to see how some students group together, and perhaps report answers that may not be true to themselves due to the sense of belonging (i.e. peer pressure) to fit in with their group mates. Hopefully this will change by the end of the third workshop, where they will all participate in preparing bread with group 23. What type of bread will they be preparing? You’ll just have to stay tuned to find out.

-H