Tips

What makes gardening programs work for Middle Schoolers.

• “Middle schoolers need rigorous, relevant, hands-on curriculum.  They need a variety of teaching modalities. In culinary, they get outside of the classroom, till soil, pull weeds, taste food straight off the plant or vine, learn about plant parts, learn herb and vegetable identification, and then bring it into the classroom and prepare and consume it!” –Ms. Nugent
• Locate the garden where it is easily accessible to the students. When it’s close to the classroom, it’s easy and immediately relevant to the lessons.
• When it’s close to the classroom, it’s easy and immediately relevant to the lessons.
• Always tie food to concepts of culture and nutrition.  Use the USDA interactive web links http://mypyramid.gov/pyramid/index.html for research into the health quotient of foods kids typically eat.
• Classroom management is important. In Ms. Nugent’s “Kitchen Roles and Responsibilities” tasks for each role are spelled out very clearly, and there are enough roles that everyone in a team has specific duties to perform. Students rotate roles.

Student Garden Team

To engage students, Ms. Nugent:  “I started the Green Team.  This is a lunchtime group of about 25 student volunteers who work the garden—weed, plant and then have lunch in the garden, once the produce needs to be harvested. After a while, they started to prepare special items from the produce, like pesto, salsa, and other items. Gradually, other teachers came to the garden, sampled and decided to start their own gardens. Now there are lots of small gardens on campus outside classroom doors. This garden served as the catalyst for greening the entire school grounds. 

Cafeteria-Classroom Connection

The Cafeteria manager held a taste testing for the produce she planned to serve in the lunchroom and used the Green Team as the focus group.  She also gave the Culinary Arts classes a tour of the cafeteria kitchen to see how a commercial sized kitchen operates.  She gave a professional demonstration on food safety and promoted the school lunch program.