By Susan Carpenter, LATimes.com All dirts are not created equal. Urban dirt in particular has suffered the fallout from human activity, often with higher-than-healthy concentrations of lead, arsenic and other toxic metals that accumulate in the soil and are sucked up by plants. It’s an issue of grave importance for the millions of Americans who […]
Smart By Nature: Schooling for Sustainability By Michael K. Stone/Center for Ecoliteracy Foreword by Daniel Goleman, author of Ecological Intelligence Smart by Nature: Schooling for Sustainability portrays the growing sustainability movement in K-12 education, showcasing inspiring stories of public, independent, and charter schools across the country. This 216-page book describes strategies for greening the campus […]
School starts next week. For those with school gardens already in place now is the time to be ordering your seeds. For those who are starting from scratch see, How to Start and Maintain a School Garden. If you’re not sure what is seasonal for your area check out your local cooperative extension. In mild […]
May not be many students around over the summer, but that hasn’t stopped our school gardens from performing. Corn is high, tomatoes are plump, cucumbers are fat, peppers are turning color, pole beans are still producing, and zucchinis are abundant. cherokee purple tomato Two recipes to utilize all this goodness are included below. 1) Black […]
Over the course of two weeks students wrote, filmed, and directed this short film after reading Paul Fleischman’s novel Seedfolks. These stories are the students’ stories created on location in Mr. Hughes’ English class at Virgil Middle School in Los Angeles, California. Put this book on your summer reading list, you’ll thank me in the […]
Green beans (aka string beans or snap beans) are one of our earliest spring harvests. Seed to table is usually about 60 days. We are currently harvesting both bush beans and pole beans. The difference between the two being: bush beans mature all at once while pole beans mature over a longer period of time. […]
By Elvia J. Montanez, Director or the Pre-K program, Holy Name of Mary School, San Dimas, CA We’re just a single pre-k class in a pre-k through eighth grade school, but the children and parents have helped create a beautiful and bountiful garden. It is actually the space of dirt found in a “U-shape” between […]