By Jesse Kurtz-Nicholl
With all of the coverage of Michelle Obama in the news lately, you would be a fool not to think that gardens are the answer to all of our public health problems. In addition to the “White House” garden, you’ve got the new “People’s Garden” at the USDA building in D.C., you’ve got [...]
Entries Tagged as 'school gardens'
Beyond “Museum” Gardens
April 15th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Wellness, garden, kids
Tags: obesity·school food·school gardens
D.C. School Gardens Link with Alice Waters
February 23rd, 2010 · 2 Comments · kids
When Alice Waters came to Washington last month she met with D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and the schools’ new food service director, Jeffrey Mills, to talk about building a model school garden program in the District. Mills was already keen on the idea, so in very short order he asked Sarah Bernardi at Bancroft [...]
Behind White House Garden Triumph, School Gardens Desperate for Help
February 8th, 2010 · 9 Comments · kids
Sarah Bernardi is one of the teachers from Bancroft Elementary School here in the District of Columbia whose students famously have been helping Michelle Obama grow the new White House vegetable garden. Despite all the interaction between school kids and the First Lady, however, Sarah says her own school garden and others like it depend too [...]
Tags: school gardens·white house
The Evils Of School Gardens
January 12th, 2010 · 5 Comments · kids
Is it possible to write a hatchet job about something as innocent as school gardens?
Apparently so. I would not have believed it, but there it is in the otherwise esteemed Atlantic magazine, a venomous screed that would have you believe that gardening constitutes a sinister scheme to take over our nation’s schools; that schools are turning kids [...]
Tags: school gardens
“Healthy Schools” Pushes Food Gardening
December 13th, 2009 · 3 Comments · Sustainability, Wellness, garden, kids
“Healthy Schools” legislation introduced this week in the D.C. Council would, for the first time, establish a school gardens program within the Office of the State Superintenent of Education as part of a sweeping package of food and environmental initiatives. And while the bill ( read previous posts here, here and here) does not mandate gardens [...]
A Kids-Eye View of White House Gardening
December 11th, 2009 · No Comments · garden, kids
Much has been written about Michelle Obama and her White House vegetable garden. But not so much has been heard from all the kids at our own Bancroft Elementary School who’ve done so much to help with the garden. Sarah Bernardi, the art teacher at Bancroft who helps maintain the school’s edible gardens, has a great [...]
School Garden Week In D.C.
October 6th, 2009 · No Comments · kids
Students at the Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School were so swept away with the idea of growing their own food that they decided to film a documentary about how kids can change the way they eat. What may have been most telling about a screening of the film last night was the way the [...]
Tags: school gardens·school lunches
Starting Beans
April 4th, 2009 · No Comments · Uncategorized
Suddenly it’s raining every day. Too wet to plant things outdoors. But a perfect time to get things started in seed trays in the classroom.
I read three times a week to one of the classes at my daughter’s charter school and in spring our attention turns to the garden. Sprouting seeds is always a [...]
Tags: beans·school gardens·seed starting
White House to Veg Garden with School Kids
March 20th, 2009 · 5 Comments · Uncategorized
The garden and food blogs are all atwitter with news that Michelle Obama will be installing a food garden at the White House.
Apparently I was outnumbered in my argument against the garden on grounds that President Obama should think about food policy for the whole nation before he started feeding the First Family produce from [...]
Schools & Community Gardens
March 10th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
Walking my daughter to school each morning, I often looked wistfully at the huge expanse of yard next to Cardozo Senior High School and thought what a wonderfully productive garden it would make. All that space with a clear southern and western exposure. What a shame to pave it over with grass that no [...]
We are engaging the concerns of a hungry planet--slowly--right here in our kitchen garden in the District of Columbia, about a mile from the White House.
