GReeN15A volunteer initiative to help green School District 15 by sharing information

Welcome to the firstissue of Green 15!We created this newsletter to

connect the many groups in

District 15 that are building

gardens, composting cafeteria

waste, catching rain water and

otherwise addressing

unsustainable norms in our schools.

We hope to use this bi-monthly

forum to faciliate the sharing of

ideas and inspirations. Join us!

Share your events and efforts with

us, and keep the movement going.

Go green!

—Nick Bedell, David Buckel and Larissa Phillips, editors

Help create the nextnewsletterThe next newsletter will start using

your information to better map the

color green in District 15. We’re

not looking so much for what the

school is required to do anyway

(like following the Chancellor’s

recycling requirements), but for

volunteers’ extra efforts to help

create the green citizens of the

future. Let us know about the

extra efforts at:

GGrreeeennSScchhoooollssBBrrooookkllyynn@@ggmmaaiill..ccoomm

ContentsPage 2: Ready, Set, Mobilize! Tips for turning ideas into actionPage 3: Report from the Schoolyard: Garden to Café Page 4: School Gardens and Urban Farms

Shout OutA big shout out to MattSheehan, an intrepid volunteerat PS 146, the Brooklyn NewSchool. Matt’s vermicompostingprogram at the school – “Feed aWorm, Not a Landfill” – earneda $10,000 Green Heroes grant from the Clorox Company.The goal is to eventually compost 100 percent of theschool’s food waste with student participation, and the finished product will enrich the school’s food garden andotherwise be bagged and sold to raise money for theschool. That’s at the cutting edge of greening schools.

Ahmed Alsahqani Enjoys PS 295’s Tomato Jungle!

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You have just decided to participate in your child’s school. Youwant him/her to have a “greener” experience and think schoolis a good place for that to happen. You have come to the realization that it is your child’s generation that is going tosolve the problem of global warming, not your own. Armed andready, enthusiastic and optimistic, you launch into a project.What to do first? A meeting? Fund raising? Strategic planning?Talk to parents “in the know” for ideas? Speak to the principal,or maybe your child’s teacher? The possibilities seem endlessand overwhelming – and very quickly, so do the obstacles.

Very few peopleshow at the meeting. The principal, whilereceptive duringyour thirty-secondconversation at thedoor one morning,clearly has a lot onhis/her plate. Yourchild’s teacher iswilling, but doesnot have theresources to implement new curriculum. The custodian smiles atyou but is dismissive. And the“in the know” parents are over-whelmed with fundraising andstretched to thelimit.

What do you do?Many of you will not face all of these obstacles at once, butmost of you will surely recognize at least some of the situationsI’ve described. As a longtime labor and community organizer,I’d like to suggest some basic organizing principles that can beapplied to your work in greening our schools.

• The meeting is who is there: When turnout is poor, participants can feel demoralized. The assumption is that folksare apathetic and change cannot happen with so few people.Even if you feel this way, do not voice it! It kills the spirit in theroom. Instead, get to work with who is there – you will be

Ready, Set, Mobilize!Tips for turning ideas into action by Nick Bedell

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COOL LINKSGardens for Learning: Creating and Sustaining Your School Garden, 2006, hhttttpp::////bbiitt..llyy//ggrreeeenn1155__ggaarrddeennss

Lunch Matters: How to Feed Our Children Better, The Story of the Berkeley School Lunch Initiative, 2008 hhttttpp::////bbiitt..llyy//ggrreeeenn1155__lluunncchh

Added Value’s Farm-Based Learning at the Red Hook Community Farm: hhttttpp::////bbiitt..llyy//ggrreeeenn1155__aaddddeedd

surprised at how much gets done if the group is small, and howmany great organizations started with just a few people in aroom.

• Facilitate the meeting, keep good notes, and pass out theminutes: Somebody should run the meeting – keeping thegroup on task and not drifting, summarizing what has been saidafter everyone has spoken and moving people to take responsibility for doing something specific. It is pleasantly surprising to me how people who could not attend a meetingwill read the notes and feel included – and inspired to attendthe next meeting.

• Talk, talk, talk, and listen, listen, listen: Every time you arein a room with parents, teachers, and administrators is a chanceto talk about your ideas for change. Always talk, and mostimportantly listen, to what people say – nothing keeps folksinvolved more than the feeling that what they say is beingheard.

• Set reasonable goals: Nothing feeds success like success.Make small changes at first: get teachers to have kids use bothsides of the paper before you go for solar panels on the roof.Little changes build capacity and get the message out: healthysnacks list, clothing swaps, and wax paper bags for packedlunches all start the school moving in the right direction. Thesolar panels will follow and kids will be eating and cooking vegetables they grew in no time

• You CAN do it — it just takes a lot of effort: You will hearalong the way that that your goal it is not possible, that it coststoo much money, takes too much time, is not a priority, etc. Butchange can happen if you work hard and keep building a groupof like-minded supporters in your school community. Delegatewhat you can, keep others involved, see everyone as aresource, give lots of praise and expect none, and mostly, enjoythe process.

When we started the Green Committee at the Brooklyn NewSchool four years ago, three parents met with one teacher oneday after school. It seemed like this was going nowhere. Wehad posted notices of the meeting throughout the school andtalked it up, and only four people came. Four years later wehave vermi-composting, food gardens, recycling throughout theschool, a rain catchment system and a growing awareness thatgreen behaviors need to be taught, and lived in our school. Weare nowhere near there, but the path is getting more visiblewith each new step.

Alarm bells go off in my head when bureaucrats start coming up withfood programs. So when my children’s school (PS 146) was acceptedinto Garden to Café – a pilot program run by several agencies, including the Office of School Foods, and the NYS Department ofAgriculture and Markets – I admit I was a bit skeptical.

According to its literature, the goals of the Garden to Café are simple:“to connect school gardening and school lunch menus through seasonalharvest events and supporting educational activities.” This is accomplished through a day of harvest-themed activites, culminating inlunch prepared by the cafeteria staff featuring produce grown by students, as well as produce procured through farmers’ market. Beyondthat, each school is free to add its own spin.

It turns out sometimes bureaucrats have good ideas. Participants in theprogram held their second Harvest Day in October of 2009. Here aresome highlights from this fall’s participating District 15 schools:

PS 295Librarian Susan Weseen’s “Godzilla Gardeners” Club (mostly 3rdgraders) maintains a plot at the 6/15 Community Garden in SouthSlope; and behind the Prospect Hill Senior Citizens Center. Both thesesites grew tomatoes, peppers, and various herbs.

Harvest Day: Tasting tables in the library held three dishes made byparents, consisting largely of produce grown by the students: SaysWeseen, “We had corn salad with tomatoes, basil and peppers; beantaquitos with cilantro, and pasta with tomato sauce with basil.” Therewas also unsweetened tea made from lemon balm and mint (“The kidswere like, ‘Can we have this at lunch?’”); herbs for sniffing and nasturtiums and cherry tomatoes for tasting; a slide show of gardenactivites; a compost demo; and a reading corner with garden-themedbooks.

Lunch: “We had squash and potato stew with cilantro; pasta withpesto; chicken with herbs.”

What went well: “It was a bit more low key this year with less hoopla[than last year], but I think it reached kids more deeply.”

For next year: “I really want to get parents more involved. We have somany different cultures at the school, and I’m sure we have a lot ofgreat cooks.”

PS 146/The Brooklyn New SchoolBNS grew herbs and salad greens in a container garden in the playground; collard greens were also harvested from the Farm atAdded Value in Red Hook.

Harvest Day: The cafeteria was decorated with signs and artwork.Stations included: a slide show of BNS kids in the garden and at AddedValue; herb- and produce-tasting tables; yogurt-making (kids saw howyogurt was made and then chose various toppings for samples); apple-tasting; a visiting farmer; a science table about oil and vinegar emulsions; worm compost; microscopes for looking at seeds and vegetables, butcher paper with gourds and squashes for drawing.

Lunch: Braised collards with chickpeas; pesto pasta; green salad;squash rolls, and pumpkin pie. (Parents had helped the cafeteria staffprepare some of food the day before.)

What went well: The yogurt-making and the emulsifying tables wereespecially popular.

For next year: More build-up in the preceding days, with classroomexplorations and tastings of the foods that will be featured.

PS 107PS 107 grew basil, herbs, peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, and kale inraised beds in the school’s yard.

Harvest Day: A parent gave a presentation on heirloom apples; thenkids went to a Food Expo, which featured a tasting table where kidscould vote on their favorite dish. (The winner? Rice with herbs, now arecurring dish in the cafeteria.) There was also juicing, apple-tasting andveggie-and-dip.

Lunch: Eggplant stew, chicken with herbs, kale slaw, and pesto pasta.

What went well: Parent Susan Hawk: “My son came home talkingabout the kale. Believe me, kale and my son don’t usually go in thesame sentence!”

For next year: “I think we’d like to give the kids a little more input. It’stheir garden. They could do presentations.”

PS 29According to PS 29’s full-time Garden Coordinator Emily Freund, “Wewere trying to show how food and farming can be a connection pointfor all of these topics [P.E., diversity, local issues, etc.] which are important to the PS 29 community,” says Freund.

Harvest Day: Activity leaders visited classrooms throughout the morning, including: a read-aloud with the book “How to Make anApple Pie and See the World”; a visiting Brooklyn bee-keeper andBrooklyn chicken-keeper; a hay bale-obstacle course; worm-bin demo;print-making with cut vegetables; kids writing letters for a Slow Foodcampaign about school food; and cheese- and apple tastings.

Lunch: “We had asked parents to encourage their children to have hotlunch on that day.” Parents were also invited in to join their children forlunch. “All summer long we were harvesting and freezing the basil fromour school garden so we would have enough for pesto. Now it’sfamous; the kids get really excited when the cafeteria serves pestopasta.”

Bonus: The day finished with an afternoon concert by Tom Chapin, andslide show by a farmer, Scott Chaskey, from Quail Hill Farm. “Both ofthem reiterated what the kids had had for lunch and talked about howimportant it is to know where your food comes from.”

For next year: “Maybe over the course of the week guests could comein and introduce the idea, starting earlier in the week. So then onHarvest Day kids really get it and understand why we’re eating this.”

Report From the School Yard:Garden to Café by Larissa Phillips

PS 29 kids picked basil for their Harvest Day.

Interested in getting your school involved in Garden to Cafeteria?Contact Billy Doherty at wwiilllliiaammdd@@sscchhoooollss..nnyycc..ggoovv or Christina Grace at cchhrriissttiinnaa..ggrraaccee@@aaggmmkktt..ssttaattee..nnyy..uuss.

For support in starting a school garden, go to hhttttpp::////wwwwww..ggrreeeenntthhuummbbnnyycc..oorrgg or contact rraasshheeeedd..hhiisslloopp@@ppaarrkkss..nnyycc..ggoovv

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According to the CDC, our children will likely be the first of anygeneration in U.S. history with shorter lifespans than their parents, partly because of obesity and diabetes. A piece of theproblem is kids’ faulty knowledge of food, and schools arewhere they eat and learn during the day. N.Y.C. schools serveover 800,000 meals a day when in session – only the U.S. military has a larger food system. So in our city’s schools, notonly is health at stake for hundreds of thousands of children,but the system significantly impacts the climate (what food isselected, how it was grown and processed, how far it travels toget here, how it is prepared and served, and how scraps andleftovers are managed).

Making The Biggest DifferenceThis means N.Y.C. parents, teachers, and school administratorscan make a big difference by creating sustainable schools: forthe future of their kids’ health and their environment. Goodmodels in the largest systems can lead to the biggest change.The effect is exponential if the kids themselves are at the centerof the effort, participating in a way that builds their knowledgeand skills for making good choices about a healthful eatinglifestyle and environment.

One bullseye for success has emerged: sustainable school gardens and farm-based learning in elementary schools. In gardens or nearby farms, elementary students can engagemore deeply in understanding a healthful lifestyle and environment. Various studies prove the obvious about vegetables: when kids grow them, know them, pick them, andcook them, kids are more likely to eat them, inside school andout. See the “Cool Links” section for those reports, underGardens for Learning and Lunch Matters. And when kids experience sustainable practices for growing food, they caremore about the environment.

The Need To Weave Throughout The CurriculumBut real success occurs when the topic of sustainably grownfood is integrated throughout the curriculum. In part, sustainability is about living in a way that does not detract fromhow oneself and others will live – adding rather than subtracting. This connects not only to healthful eating, and protecting the environment, but most broadly to becoming agood citizen, a core goal for any school. And it makes sensethat the development of good citizenship is not limited to anutrition class, or a history class, but is pedagogically related toall aspects of the school’s environment. To help achieve its coregoal of creating good citizens, a school has to create green citizens, and that means weaving the topic of sustainabilitythroughout the curriculum.

This is not hard when teachers have a school garden or urbanfarm as a platform, as shown in the examples from Gardens forLearning, ranging across science, math, history and the language arts.

Let’s Face It: The Cafeteria Is Part Of The CurriculumThe effort must reach the cafeteria, too. Students’ minds do not switch off when passing through the cafeteria doors. First, they learn from what adults choose to provide by way offood. Of course that’s a huge and difficult topic itself, too much to handle here; to find out more, visit the Brooklyn FoodCoalition’s School Lunch Reform group athhttttpp::////bbiitt..llyy//ggrreeeenn1155__rreeffoorrmm.

But students learn not just by what they’re offered to eat, butby the rules (or lack of rules) that govern how students participate in the cafeteria’s operation. The Chancellor’s regula-tion on recycling requires that every principal appoint a“Sustainability Coordinator” – see the regulation at this link:hhttttpp::////bbiitt..llyy//ggrreeeenn1155__ccoooorrddiinnaattoorr. That Coordinator will addressrecycling throughout the school, including the cafeteria. Andfrom the standpoint of creating good green citizens, perhapsthe biggest focus for parents and educators might be on howstudents themselves are actively involved in the recycling program. With 800,000 meals a day, our schools’ cafeteriasgenerate the largest amount of institutional food waste outsideof the U.S. military – and it should be composted, as occurs atthe Brooklyn New School. In any plans developed by aSustainability Coordinator for separating waste at the source,the cafeteria offers perhaps the most extraordinary opportunityfor students to develop good habits for the planet, and goodcitizenship.

ConclusionRecognizing that the cafeteria functions as part of the curriculum, and using school gardens or urban farms as platforms to fully integrate sustainability into the curriculum,schools can best promote healthful lifestyles with food at thesame time they more broadly create the green citizens of thefuture, and a better environment for their future. Taking a rolein making that happen, parents and educators help their ownkids and make a huge difference for everyone. For all the need-ed resources at the fingertips, including how to fund-raise for agarden, how to build it, and how to integrate it into the curricu-lum, a good place to start is Growing School and YouthGardens in New York City, A Guide to Resources, 2009, at thislink: hhttttpp::////bbiitt..llyy//ggrreeeenn1155__ggaarrddeennss22.

School Gardens and Urban Farms by David Buckel, from the Brooklyn Food Coalition’s Kensington/Windsor Terrace Group

Some examples derived from Gardens forLearning in the “COOL LINKS” box:Health science: with plants in hand, students learns about various crops’ nutritional value; the importance of sustainablepractices for growing healthful food; respect the difference inblindfold taste tests between classroom-grown vegetables andvegetables shipped from afar – plus the benefit to the environment in growing food close by.

Earth science: students can study the effects of different soils(density, air spaces, presence of living organisms, composition,texture, smell, appearance) and appreciate the importance ofsustainable soil management by managing worm bins that create enriched soil without chemicals.

Mathematics: they measure and graph growth rates of plants,predicting future growth; deploy seed packets’ data, calculatingdates of germination and maturity and planning backward froma desired harvest date to the required planting date; and gathervegetable prices in a supermarket to determine market value ofthe class harvest.

History: they research and report on cultural or ethnic differences in food growing practices, with varying emphasis onsustainability.

Language arts: they publish a class newsletter with student articles about their sustainable garden, and write researchpapers on favorite plants, delivering presentations to studentsor parents.

Let us know what’s happening at your school: GreenSchoolsBrooklyn@gmail.com