Move 3

Edible Schoolyard in brief

The project's concept is to introduce kindergarten to high school's kids to the nature and organic food. To implement this, the teachers involved in this project build gardens and use kitchens to learn how to use fresh vegetables, fruits and how to prepare organic lunch with the students. They help the kids to be friendly with the nature and to respect it.

Story of Edible Schoolyard

This project started in California twenty years ago. A principal of a school wanted to change, refresh his Middle School and with the help of a newspaper's women, they started a garden for the students and had some basics classes in the kitchen, as math or civilization with some garden's product and kitchen technics.

After a lot of work and energy given on this project, they finally led to some fields cleared and plantation in them. The project took shape and got clear: they want to rebuild the school spirit and create the most as possible of the classes around nature. Everything was implemented with the teachers and a lot of them got familiar with hands-on classes. They could not forget that before teaching regular classes in the kitchen to students, the teachers had to learn themselves how to work math, or history through the nature. After this process worked, they finally taught to their students almost 15 schools periods outside of the regular classroom.

First projects

This project is a long process and teachers had to start with some experiments. Some of them were probably unsuccessful. But it was a different and exciting type of challenge for them.

The first initiatives were simple, cheap but effective. Moreover, a lot of collaborator helped to provide the material necessary for free or cheaper. First of all, they started to recover the most rainwater as possible to spray one of their grove, what did not require too much financial investment. They also built a chicken coop so they could take care of chickens and ducks and learn about those typical farm animals. Furthermore, the students use the most of their eggs in the kitchen. They do an annual plant sale for the Mother’s day due to their garden specially designed to teach students how to use their hands to take care of a kitchen garden.

Edible Schoolyard and The Prairie School

Move 4

The Edible Schoolyard website

What about today?

They have more than hundred varieties of natural product and vegetables and an entire school program has been set up around nature.

It definitely inspired a lot of schools, and communities, and it’s exactly what some teachers from The Prairie School initiated about twelve years ago.

Ms. Henke Mueller, a 4th grade teacher at prairie accompanied by other colleagues began a garden at The Prairie School. “ It was seen as a chance to have a outdoor classroom where the students could see the science behind our food grows” says Ms Mueller. And it is an amazing chance to offer this opportunity to Prairie’s students to learn in a different way than a classroom. Moreover, they even installed a butterfly garden with a lot of different kind of small flying beasts, such as birds, butterflies or other pollinators. Four years ago, they revived a large part of the garden with the help of the kids.The kids’ families got more involved in the project and helped financially to lead to do some renovations. They made it more spacious and more organised with the aid of new beds to produce even more food. They’re not only keeping the fresh food for the school, the students and teachers decided to donate a part of their crops to the Racine County Food Bank to distribute fresh vegetables and to help people or families in need.

However, Ms. Henke Mueller started to teach a actual “ Edible Schoolyard” class for the first time this year. It involves more than just letting growing vegetables, it is about nutrition, botany and cooking all together. Henke says: “It is my goal to have the children make better choices about what they eat, to connect them to the food we grow, learn some of the science behind cooking.”. She has always looked ways to connect the children to their natural environment and not only study about it in the classroom. It is a way to have fun, positive experiences and have more “recreation time” outside. And it is precisely what the “Edible Schoolyard” has been created for. Furthermore, The Prairie School 4th grader’s teachers built hoop houses this year, to spend more time outside, and have the opportunity to grow food the whole year even in the cold and rather long winters of Wisconsin. It give also a chance to follow and see the whole process of plantations, grow, cook, and then eat the food. The foundation of this classes is on understanding how plants work (differences between fruits and vegetables, flowers and pollination) which involves a lot of different process to learn about, in a different method of teaching than learning by heart in class without materially understanding it. It is a different way to have the kids realize how precious the food is and to try to encourage less waste in the daily life. And the biggest goal of this class program of course is to allow the kids to see the beauty of the nature, and the joy that the children have during creating and sharing food.

Henke Mueller says, “It is my goal to have the children make better choices about what they eat, to connect them to the food we grow, learn some of the science behind cooking.”