Assignment: Ed Garden Food Literacy

*Note - this assignment is part of the Ed Garden Project. You will be completing parts of this project in multiple classes (Crop & Soil Management, Food Systems, and Ecology of Ag Systems)

“Food Literacy is a multi-faceted concept that comprises three integrated components: Food, nutrition and health; Agriculture, environment and ecology; Social development and equity.” [from Bellotti, 2010]." (p. 10)

Food Literacy is... "a relative ability to understand the nature of food and your own impact as a consumer and citizen on health status, environment, social and economic factors."

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TphvR6mKGpNm1DviHSvVCEbbNptMonZq/view?usp=sharing

Food Literacy & the Ed Garden Project

Food literacy is having the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to choose, grow, prepare and enjoy healthy food to support one's health, community and the environment. It means understanding the impact of our food choices on our health, the environment and our economy. Major efforts in "Food Literacy" education are being carried out across institutions (hospitals, schools, non-profits, etc.) across the entire United States. These efforts are focused throughout the food system. Some programs tie students (and adults) to the reality of where food comes from (carrots grow in the ground, meat comes from animals, etc.). Others focus on cooking classes and how to prepare healthy meals. Yet others tie in the environmental effects of segments of the food system and how we might do better.

As you already know you are planning, planting, and maintaining the education garden at Merry Lea Sustainable Farm. In your Crop & Soil Management Class you will be assessed on your applied knowledge regarding how to plan and implement a planting project like this. In your Food Systems course we will focus on the food literacy aspect of the assignment.

The Education Garden at Merry Lea functions as a multi-use educational space used by multiple ML programs. The ASI students plan, plant, eat from, and care for the garden during the summer while the MLSF farm manager cares for it during the spring and the fall. The MAEE (Masters of Environmental Education) students learn about food literacy education in this space and teach from it during the fall. ML's EEO relies on it as a resource for its programming. The ed garden mainly serves first, second, and fifth graders but it also is used for high school programs. The main focus of the education garden curriculum is listed in the Program Description and Objectives documentation, so please check it out! In short, the main point of EMLSF is for students to have a sensory-rich experience where they get to connect the food they eat to our environment and draw parallels between agroecosystems and other ecosystems.

You already have notes from meetings with Marcos, etc. regarding what types of experiences are most useful for the food literacy work done with K-5 students at Merry Lea. Here are more resources regarding the curriculum on the EMLSF K-5 program:

Links containing background information on EMLSF

Program Description and Objectives

EMLSF Alignment with Standards

First Grade Lesson Plan

Second Grade Lesson Plan

Fifth Grade Lesson Plan

Ed Garden stakeholders to consider when completing this assignment

ML EEO (Environmental Education and Outreach

• • • These folks design, coordinate, and carry out EMLSF and other educational programming on the farm

ML MAEE (Masters of Environmental Education)

• • • These students learn how to use farm systems for environmental education by using the ed garden as a classroom (for themselves through practicum but also for students that participate in EMLSF)

Merry Lea Farm farm manager

• • • Cares for the garden along with farm crew after ASI students leave - whatever is planned and planted must be manageable!

Summer ASI and Fall SLS students

• • • These undergrad programs are fed from the ed garden.

Description and Rubric

Your tasks in this assignment is as follows:

1. Do some general background research on food literacy issues as they relate to the K-5 population. This is intended to be a brief foray into this issue to help give you a grounding in what we know about the current gaps in elementary school children’s food literacy. There is no need to cite in this section, it should just be a couple of paragraphs that show you are familiar with the topic. This background research should address the following: (i) what are some of the major food literacy issues identified in K-5 populations (i.e. typically what do they know about food and what don’t they know) & why as a society are we concerned about food literacy in the K-5 population? (ii) How do these food literacy issues tie into the idea of Agroecology (Cycles, Diversity, Participation)? [12% ~ half page single spaced]

2. Do background research on the EMLSF program as laid out in the above documents and from your previous in-person meetings. Specifically please comment on the lesson plans - where do you see Agroecological principles (Cycles, Diversity, Participation) within the material? Do you see any “missed opportunities” to highlight K-5 food literacy education that could be taking place at Merry but currently aren't? How might this be addressed? Again this should be a brisk 2 or 3 paragraphs that show you are familiar with the existing EMLSF program and can use your knowledge of food literacy and Agroecology to critique the existing program. [13% ~ half page single spaced]

3. This is the majority of the assignment. Reference the planning and planting work you are doing for your assigned beds in the education garden. Please describe how you have intentionally designed this bed to be a learning space for food/ regenerative agriculture literacy and K-5 students (i.e. planting familiar crops, thinking about walking paths and flow, etc.). Make sure you use plenty of specific examples of what you planted and how this is specifically intended to contribute to K-5 student learning on food literacy and regenerative agricultural principles given the resources above. Additionally, what advice or instructions do you have for the farm manager regarding care of the beds? What about for the MAEE students who will be using it for instruction? [75% ~ 1 page single spaced]

I expect these reports to be about 2 pages (single spaced, 12 point font) in length so please scale your work accordingly.