Our OWWCC 2009 Inaugural Delegation at the entrance to the former Manzanar War Relocation Center.
Authentically Teaching Bainbridge History: Delegation to Manzanar
April 13, 2022 at 11:30am, Wednesday – on Zoom
Join us to hear about the journey local teachers took to create their own stories through experiencing Manzanar alongside survivors. Listen to perspectives from teachers, survivors and co-directors of the Only What We Can Carry Project (OWWCC), who have facilitated the past five delegations.
Panelists: Jonathan Garfunkel, Bill Covert and Lilly Kitamoto Kodama
Through Eating, Sharing, and Studying Food We Can Build Sustainable Communities
The Seed Field Podcast, Antioch University, November 3, 2021, Episode S2E5
Do you know where your food comes from? Whether it is the food we are getting at a grocery store, farmer’s market, restaurant, or our backyard, understanding the way food is produced and the larger systems it is a part of can help us fight for more sustainable and equitable access to food. Scholar and dedicated food educator Jon Garfunkel talks with guest host Mair Allen about the ways that acts like reclaiming public spaces for gardening, having conversations with local food providers, and volunteering to help to feed your community can help us understand and correct problems in the food systems we currently depend on—both locally and globally.
Learning Through Cupcakes: Baker Hopes to Spread Kitchen Knowledge
MAY 27, 2020, SEATTLE
BY JASPER NIGHTHAWK, Common Thread, Antioch University Seattle News
“I think I’ve always just loved making cupcakes for people,” says Niallah Cooper-Scruggs, a graduate student at Antioch University Seattle. This love began the day her mom taught her how to make her first batch, topped with a sweet and tangy cream cheese frosting that was just right – not too runny, just stiff enough. She perfected this in high school when she made it her tradition to bring cupcakes in for friends’ birthdays. As an adult, she kept making them, and this love deepened. “They’re cool little bite treats that can be full of tons of flavor,” she says, and she came to “love using the local ingredients here in the Pacific Northwest.” So it was natural that when, in the fall of 2018, Cooper-Scruggs decided to stop working in professional kitchens and open her own bakery, she decided to focus her menu around this simple delight – the cupcake.
Keeping things relatively simple was smart because – in addition to opening her first business – she had recently begun studying for a Masters of Education program at Antioch Seattle. “It was actually kind of hard,” she says. “I was constantly juggling baking during the nighttime, and then I would have class during the day.”
She thought business would be slow at first, but her cupcakes were quickly a hit. Working out of a shared industrial kitchen belonging to a senior center, she developed distinctive offerings. There was the Gold Digga, a chocolate cupcake soaked in Irish cream with salted caramel frosting. The Queen Bee topped a lemonade cupcake with lavender-rosemary lemon curd. Experimentation showed that seasonal flavors were big sellers, so Cooper-Scruggs found local sources for pumpkin, apples, pineapple, sage, and mint.
As she became an empowered part of the Seattle food world – exploring shared kitchens, local farms, coffee shops, and farmer’s markets – it tied directly into her studies. When she chose to study at Antioch, Cooper-Scruggs had been excited for itsLeadership in Edible Education certificate program. And it was through this program that her two worlds came together. Every week around a table laden with delicious food, she and her classmates “discussed things like food systems and problems within our food system today, we talked about food in schools and how there need to be changes in nutrition and food education in general.”
These conversations tied in with field trips, and sometimes the topics would mirror the decisions she was having to make with her bakery. “It was amazing. We went to farmer’s markets, we went to grocery stores, we would ask each other which was the best as far as food quality and food resources.”
Cooper-Scruggs made the choice to source most of the fresh ingredients for her cupcakes from a farm called Nurturing Roots. She had met the farm’s founder and director, Nyema Clark, at an all-women’s event some years before, and she knew she wanted to work with her if she started her own business. Now that she had started Sugar Queen, Nurturing Roots became her main purveyor for everything from apples and raspberries to carrots and lots of herbs. This made her cupcakes even better, but at the same time it served Cooper-Scruggs’s value of giving back to her community “by supporting local people-of-color owned businesses and farms.”
A Foodie Family
Cooper-Scruggs’s love of food goes back to her childhood. “We always gathered around food, we always ate together every night for dinner, so it was just a big thing for us in our family,” she says. Her mom loved cooking at home, her grandfather had been a professional cook, and her aunt owned her own restaurant. “I like to say that cooking and food was just a part of our family culture.”
As she grew older, she came to cherish those memories of gathering around her family dinner table. “You can remember those conversations and the things you all laughed about with a really great meal.” When it was time to get a job, it was natural to begin working in professional kitchens. One job had her working at a farm and resort where she taught kids how to cook and showed them different techniques. That was the first anyone suggested she might have a future as a food educator. “One of my chefs was like, ‘You’re really good at this. You should become a teacher.’ I was like, ‘Alright, okay.’ But I was [thinking], I’ll never be a teacher. This is not true.” Then at another job she ended up teaching food skills again, and she started to realize, You know what, I really like this. So it began to crystallize in her head that if she went back to school, that might be what she studied.
However, it took an unpleasant working environment to push her to the point of starting her own business and actually enrolling in graduate school. She was working in a restaurant where “They hired me on for a position and then they changed my position and then they changed it again.” That was hard, but even worse, they constantly questioned her abilities, making comments like “Are you sure you’re able to do this? Are you capable?” It was unpleasant enough that eventually it pushed her to a realization: “You know what? I’m going to do my own thing. I think it’s time for me to start my own business and try and see if I can be successful at that. And I did it also with school.”
In retrospect, she isn’t upset that she did that work, as unpleasant as it could be. “Now looking back, I see why I had to do that—just so I could learn more skills and go through all these restaurants and learn the skills so I could start my own business eventually. So I don’t regret it at all.” Making the leap into starting her own business has been, by all accounts, a wonderful experience. “Sometimes, it seems surreal that God has provided me with a business I love,” she says, “but I am constantly reminded that dreams can come true and they are possible.”
Big Plans and Uncertainty
Sugar Queen Bakery has been on hiatus since December, when Cooper-Scruggs took a sabbatical to focus on finishing graduate school. The plan was always for her to re-open the bakery after she graduates in June. She would take Sugar Queen to farmer’s markets, re-open accounts with coffee shops, and try to land more wedding cake and cupcake jobs. The dream is for Sugar Queen to eventually have its own storefront where regulars can drop by in person—and where she could have a kitchen set up just to her own specifications.
Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has put all of those plans on hold. Cooper-Scruggs is grateful that by chance she was already taking a break—so it didn’t force her into an unexpected closure—but it is putting serious roadblocks in the path toward re-opening. It doesn’t seem like the senior center where she was renting shared kitchen space will be in any hurry to allow outside chefs to rent space again. It’s a period of uncertainty for Sugar Queen Bakery.
In the longer-run, Cooper-Scruggs seems well-positioned to thrive and continue making an impact on her community. Getting her degree in education has made her even more passionate about sharing her love of food. “I believe that I can combine both my skills as a cook and baker, and use them to teach others how to create healthy meals and desserts,” she says. “My hope is to have Sugar Queen Bakery as my business, while using teaching to give back to the community.”
Food and Education in Times of Crisis: A Bridging Classroom & Community Dialogue
Presented by the Leadership in Edible Education Program at Antioch University Seattle & EduCulture
Thursday, April 23, 2020, 4-5 p.m.
How do we wrestle with the paradox we are currently experiencing at the cross roads of food supply and kitchen literacy when “(O)ur food distribution networks are under siege. At the same time, food is proving stressful for people who are not used to cooking for themselves” (New York Times 3-18-20)? How do we hold space for the constraints we are experiencing with our food system and supply while creatively addressing short and long term solutions for food and education?
With millions of students at home, schools struggling to create an on-line learning system, and parents struggling to feed and educate their children during a time of crisis, there are significant opportunities emerging for edible education and kitchen literacy on the home front and solutions for making our local-regional food community more relevant in a time of crisis and more durable and resilient for the future.
Join us for a virtual dialogue via Zoom hosted by Antioch University Seattle, facilitated by Leadership in Edible Education faculty & Director Jonathan Garfunkel and feature program alumni and instructors. The dialogue will address the current COVID-19 crisis and its impact on our food systems. Among other topics, we will discuss the constraints to our food system and supply while also imagining creative solutions for a more durable and resilient future. Guests will include local food practitioners, helping to initiate this on-line dialogue.
Putting Food on the Table and Fostering Connections with School Gardens
MARCH 10, 2020, SEATTLE
BY KAREN HAMILTON, Common Threads, Antioch University Seattle News
Sarah Bethel has moved from coast to coast. She studied environmental studies at the University of Oregon, traveled up and down the West Coast doing service projects as a part of AmeriCorps, and taught early Education in Vermont and Connecticut for three years. These days, Bethel is back on the west coast, and working towards a Masters of Education with a Leadership in Edible Education Certificate at Antioch University’s Seattle campus.
“The Edible Education Certificate is kind of like a tour,” Bethel says. “A road map of the history of food in this county and how our food shapes our values.”
For Bethel, the transition from environmental studies to education was a smooth one, sparked by those early days when she was on the road with AmeriCorps. It was during this time that Bethel would get her first taste of edible education.
“I didn’t know much about gardening. I had a leadership position with AmeriCorps, and we went up and down the West Coast setting up school and community gardens,” she says. “I was learning and teaching kids at the same time.”
Bethel’s interest in gardening found further fuel when she took a position at a school in Vermont as a school garden coordinator in Burlington, Vermont. The program was unique, combining teaching preschool through sixth grade as well as coordinating and maintaining the school’s garden, and eventually, cooking with the yields. Bethel worked in the soil for a year before she took another position in Connecticut. Bethel took pride in the connection she had fostered between the children and food. She realized that it was something that was missing from most Americans’ relationships with the food they eat.
“We’ve been forced to move away from our deep connections to food–our connections to cooking, gardening, and our knowledge of what food does for our bodies,” she says.
Bethel finally figured out what she wanted to do, and it fell somewhere between Education and sustainability. She knew she wanted to continue to foster a connection between food and children, but Bethel also realized that jobs in the field were competitive. She would need a Master’s degree to help her stand out in the competition.
“I was feeling stuck. Everyone has a bachelor’s degree, and I wasn’t able to move forward or have access to the type of job that I wanted,” Bethel says. “I found Antioch through a colleague in Vermont, and the program’s approach to education drew me in.”
Bethel believes that when it comes to education, you get out what you put in, and she has definitely put in the time. Now on the brink of graduating with a Master’s of Educationfrom Antioch, when she looks back, Bethel is grateful for the time and work she put into Antioch’s Edible Education program.
“It prepared me for my inquiry and thesis project,” she says.
Bethel describes Antioch’s Edible Education Program as a way for teachers to take back that deep connection to food that’s been missing in education. She points to how the program explores all the different ways food can interact with education from the history of school lunch to why the food served in the cafeteria is so essential. For Bethel, Antioch’s focus on social justice and social action encouraged her to not only identify injustices but to find and apply solutions.
“It’s made me think, what can I do to make the system more just and fairer for everyone,” Bethel says.
Food is political, after all, and experts have documented disparities in the quality of food available in districts and communities. Bethel points out that there are also gaps in edible education, especially in early childhood curriculum. Inspired by the work Bethel completed in Antioch’s Edible Education program, her thesis has a heavy focus on food. Her work explores the possible solutions to close those education gaps in early education and foster deep connections to food sustainability in preschoolers.
“In my practicum for the Edible Education certificate, I found out that a lot of schools with garden education programs have gaps between gardening or growing food and cooking. I didn’t see any overlap.”
Bethel will graduate with her Master’s in June. She wants to take her experience and her Master’s degree and put everything she’s learned into practice in her own preschool classroom. The goal, of course, includes a garden.
“I don’t think I would be a complete educator without some garden component,” she says.
After graduating, Bethel plans to move once more. This time to the Midwest. She has her own roots and connections in the heartland. Wherever she goes, it’s safe to say that Bethel will foster Antioch values such as service and justice, along with growing a garden of her very own.
LEE Cohort Celebrating at our Graduation Dinner, Maneki Restaurant, June 2019
Our Leadership in Edible Education Certificate Program is pleased to announce the graduation of our 2018-2019 program cohort. In the photograph above, L-R, are graduates Sarah Bethell, Ashley Redfern, Haley Rutherford, Niallah Cooper-Scruggs, Kelly Powers, and Kim Hardman, at our Graduation Dinner at Maneki Restaurant in Seattle, with their LEE Certificates of Completion. We couldn’t be more proud and excited for what these six students accomplished over the past year to become fully engaged practitioners in edible education. We wish them well as they carry their LEE professional training and learning experiences out into the field.
Three Types of Incubator Fellowships Offered for 2018-19 Deadline for Fellowship Applications is June 8
The Leadership in Edible EducationCertificate Program (L.E.E.) is proud to announce edible education fellowship opportunities for emerging school and community leaders, which include sponsorship in our upcoming L.E.E. program cycle starting in July 2018. These Incubator Fellowships are special opportunities for emerging school and community leaders already on a path of practice with school or community based edible education to incubate a project of demonstrated need that will directly serve elementary or secondary students within the Puget Sound region. Fellows will be selected based on a specific edible education project or program they seek to implement for a particular school or community in need. The L.E.E. Certificate Program will provide the container to do the deep work and structure to fully develop and shepherd the project to the point of incubation.
Leadership in Schools Fellowship: For those formally working within K-12 schools, with a K-12 School Based Project that furthers the role of our PNW Food Shed in a school or school districts culture of curriculum, school community, school lunch, and/or extra-curricular arena.
Leadership in Education Outreach Fellowship (sponsored by EduCulture): For those working, or seeking to work, in community based education that serves elementary and/or secondary age students, who have a K-12 Community Based Project aimed at addressing issues of food security, citizenship, independence, justice, durability and wellness, while developing awareness, knowledge and engagement in our regional community food system.
During the first half of the L.E.E. program, Fellows will examine the paths of others practicing in this region’s school and food communities. Through the second half of LEE program, Fellows will examine and hone their own path of practice. They will use their culminating “incubated” project and field experience to bring their project to place where it can be piloted in 2019-20. Upon successful completion of the L.E.E. Certificate program, EduCulture will provide Fellows with continued mentorship and our non-profit organizational support to launch a pilot project for the intended setting and audience of young people from the incubated project completed.
These two Fellowships come with a $500 per quarter scholarship from EduCulture towards your L.E.E. tuition. Fellow will be responsible for $650 balance of full tuition ($125 per quarter), along with the cost of course texts, class materials, and transportation to and from field classes.
EduCulture Fellows must will agree to fully participate in all L.E.E. classes and complete all required L.E.E. course work. As well, the focus and topic of your incubated culminating project must be agreed upon and developed in consultation with the Local Food Trust.
These Fellowships are only open to those enrolling through EduCulture (not available to AUS Students).
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Leadership in Food Community Fellowship (Sponsored by Local Food Trust)
For those working or seeking to work in Puget Sound food community, with educational project that develops awareness, knowledge and engagement in our regional community food system, and addresses issues food security, citizenship, independence, justice durability and wellness. As part of this Fellowship, you will also receive consultation and oversight support from the Local Food Trust team in developing and completing your L.E.E. culminating project.
These Fellowships come with a $2250 scholarship from Local Food Trust (divided among four quarters) towards your full L.E.E. tuition. Fellows would be responsible for $250 balance of tuition ($62.50 per quarter), along with the cost of course texts, class materials, and transportation to and from field classes.
If you receive and accept this L.E.E. Fellowship, you will agree to fully participate in all L.E.E. classes and complete all required L.E.E. course work. As well, the focus and topic of your culminating project must be agreed upon and developed in consultation with the Local Food Trust.
This Fellowship is only open to those enrolling through EduCulture (not available to AUS Students)
Deadline for Fellowship Applications is June 8. For Fellowship questions and application, contact: Jonathan Garfunkel, Garfunkel@EducultureProject.org, or call 206-780-5797
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Upcoming L.E.E. Open Houses & Public Events A Discussion on the role of food in our paths of practice, especially the place of food in K-12 and Post Secondary Education
June 5, 6:30-8:30p, Antioch University Seattle June 7, 6:30-8:30p, EduCulture, Bainbridge Island
EduCulture, in partnership with Antioch University Seattle, is proud to announce openings for the 2018-2019 cycle of our Leadership in Edible Education Certificate Program (L.E.E.). The LEE program, spread over four quarterly courses from Summer 2018-Spring 2019, is aimed at building the professional repertoire of those who seek to work in the field of edible education. It’s open to formal and informal educators and other professionals who are interested in making a difference through edible education, in schools and the wider community. The program is now a formal concentration within Antioch University, making the first of its kind in a graduate program in education.
“I knew that I wanted to be a part of this food revolution, inspiring people to reclaim their birthright to eat healthy whole foods and understand how it was created. EduCulture guides us to create tangible food education programs adapting our ideas to the existing food network across the world. We observe pioneering education and we participate in practical field experiences. I love this program.” – Brian Gilbert, Cheesemonger & 2015-16 LEE Graduate
In the 21st century, edible education has become the vanguard and crossroads of many fields of education, from environmental to sustainability, social to global, experiential to vocational, outdoor to horticultural, health and nutrition to school lunch reform. Food is a topic of study that can be found across the curriculum and embedded, implicitly and explicitly, across standards and grade levels. Edible Education encompasses the entire way we think about food in schools, from wellness policies to the quality of school lunch, from the content of core curriculum to career and technical education, from school gardens to food waste recycling, and from the ecology of a school campus to our wider food community.
Bainbridge Island Students Follow The Egg, from Field to Fork, at Heyday Farm
In the Spring Season, Kindergarten students from Bainbridge Island School District study the life cycle of chickens as part of their Edible Education Pathway, developed and facilitated by EduCulture, in their role as Edible Education Liaison for the District. A major field class for students is a two part learning experience that follows fresh eggs from farm to kitchen at Heyday Farm, a partner farm in the south end of Bainbridge Island.
Students start their learning experience by putting on their farmer’s hat, touring and learning about a local pastured-raised poultry operation with Farmer Brian MacWhorter and his staff. They learn about how chickens are raised for eggs that feed a community, from where they live, what they eat, to how they behave. We also discuss how chickens are contemporary relatives of dinosaurs and explore other science and environmental learning connections. Our instructors help students select fresh eggs from nest boxes, which they then carry to a commercial egg washing machine at the farm’s processing facilities.
Students then bring their eggs to the Heyday Farm Kitchen where they put on their chef’s hat for a culinary experience with Chef Tad Mitsui and his staff. At the Heyday Kitchen, students learn how to prepare their farm egg as a soufflé with fresh farm ingredients. While their eggs creations are in the oven, student’s put on their scientist’s hat to engage in hand’s on series of compare and contrast observations between fresh, local farm eggs and store-bought eggs. Students use all of their senses to examine color, shape, texture, and eventually taste, while exploring the connections between how and where a chicken is raised and the qualities, health and taste of their eggs. When their soufflé’s are ready, students are guided through a tasting lesson to help them appreciate the flavor, texture and other characteristics of their creations.
These lived, field experiences inform more lived curricular connections for teachers and students. The outdoor classrooms we have created model effective placed based teaching and learning that is supporting science, math and social studies education. Students see their community as curriculum. Social & emotional learning is enhanced and enriched through these outdoor, field experience through interaction in natural and agricultural settings, engagement with the life cycle of live animals, and the observation of a sustainable food chain of our local community, and meeting local farmer and chefs.
Educulture has developed and facilitates a more mature version of this Follow the Egg Field Class for students in the Advanced Food Course at Bainbridge High School.
Thank you to Bainbridge Schools Foundation for funding that made it possible to develop the educational architecture to deliver these lessons for Bainbridge Island School District’s Edible Education Initiative. Thanks to our partners at Heyday Farm, Brian MacWhorter of Butler Green Farms and Tad Mitsui of Heyday Farm Kitchen.
Congratulations to the First Graduates
of our Leadership in Edible Education Certificate Program!
Leadership in Edible Education Certificate Program Graduates, Spring 2016, with LEE Co-Directors. (L-R) Ed Mikel, Angela King, Amber Williams, Stevie Long, Andrew Ely, Jon Garfunkel
Leadership in Education Certificate Program Graduates, Summer 2016, (L-R) Brian Gilbert, Barbara Bolles, Patricia Hennessy.
EduCulture is proud to announce our first graduates of Leadership in Edible Education, who completed this program in Spring and Summer 2016. Our inaugural 2015-16 cohort attracted a diverse group of Antioch MAEd students and those working in schools, on instructional farms, non-profit organizations, in the food business. We honor the significant accomplishment of these edible educators, who were the first to complete this EduCulture Certificate Program and Antioch University Concentration, and we celebrate their leadership and work in the field throughout the Puget Sound Region.
Here are the 2015-16 LEE Graduates and their Edible Education Vision Statements:
Barbara Bolles
School Garden Educator; EduCulture Instructor Cultivating a deep understanding of the interconnecting cycles and systems of life through intimate involvement, students and teachers guide each other to discover the most humane treatment of all living organisms. Growth is naturally nurtured in all academic disciplines, as well as in cooperation and compassion. The border between them becomes penetrable as teaching and learning dissolve into each other.
Andrew Ely
Educator & Farmer, 21 Acres I see a society in which all people, are healthy, are peaceful, are happy.
Edible education provides a foundation of knowledge and skills from which individuals are empowered to act on current ecological, economic and social inequities.
In 25 years I see… – Public breakfast and lunch programs utilizing onsite and locally produced foods. – Educational institutions utilizing garden and farm education for all subjects. – Our communities having easy affordable access to culturally relevant wholesome foods.
Brian Gilbert
Cheesemonger, Beecher’s Cheese Nature inspires action and a deep connection with our land enabling us to establish relationships in the community through a fundamental sharing of knowledge by engaging in co-education and cross-cultural ideas. As leaders, we collectively inspire children to eat whole foods upon planting and harvesting their own fruits and vegetables and understanding the food process by listening to the rhythm of the seasons and respecting the animals that share their lives to sustain ours.
Reconnecting to the natural traditions of food producers and honoring its antiquity allows us to enjoy gratifying nourishment while appreciating our native culture that the seed created.
We have the opportunity of daily gratitude to be educational caretakers of the earth by sharing locally produced foods. We provide knowledge of where our food is grown, nurtured, picked, packed, and distributed. We believe in sending ‘good vibes’ & enthusiasm through the tonality and presentation of food, leading to local congregation and global unity, balancing our modern life’s pace with humble simplicity, renewable with every sunrise.
When we collectively observe universal truths, explore our individual beliefs of personal identity then together we discover our communities expanding consciousness, evolve within co-creation and begin to taste the essence of our Edible Culture, participating in the celebration of life.
Patricia Hennessy
Founder & Director, Local Food Trust Food is associated with both palate and appetite. Palate being the appreciation of taste and flavor and appetite being a natural desire to satisfy a bodily need. Of course, food intersects both. While a palate can be broad, an appetite can be deep or insatiable.
Edible education offers limitless possibilities to develop a broad palate around math and science, our health and human services, global citizenship, environmental sustainability, culture, arts and geography among other understandings of who we are and our role in a greater good. Edible education can also satisfy our appetite through allowing us to dive deeper into a particular discipline or subject. While knowledge of a subject matter in and of itself can simply be a tool for creation or destruction, edible education provides a unique opportunity to engage the learner/educator in a broader sense of self and demands a certain level of responsibility in exchange for its full and comprehensive understanding.
Therefore, the ultimate purpose of edible education is to inform, inspire and engage all ages and is to be inclusive of learners in pursuit of an education and educators pursuing further learning. Edible education purposely offers a multi-faceted and interdisciplinary approach to an array of issues versus a singular and linear didactic delivery. It intentionally and deliberately instills a sense of accountability to community; local, regional and global all while using food (all facets) as a medium to create and stimulate dialogue, content and understanding of issues that commonly impact all of us as human beings.
In a formal setting (pK-12) edible education is reflected through a hands-on tactile problem solving approach. By doing, tasting, sensing and seeing children develop core academic knowledge that demonstrates mastery of one subject and at the same time build bridges between our commonalities and community.
Edible education can also be presented in an informal setting (community) as well. In these presentation gardens, kitchens, u-pick farms, CSA’s and other natural settings all offer opportunities for teachable moments.
Angela King
Edible Educator; Instructor, Pure Foods Kids Foundation Edible education is a truly revolutionary act.
Edible education aims to shift the dominant food culture that has severely impacted the health of ourselves, our communities, and the Earth into one that honors all individuals birthrights to be well; to not only survive but thrive.
Edible education seeks to honor the land by teaching sustainable food practices, communities by acknowledging and giving reverence to cultural heritage and native traditions, and ourselves by developing a deep and intuitive connection to the unchangeable truth that food is our medicine. Edible education is the key to healing ourselves, our communities, and mother Earth.
Stevie Long
MAEd Candidate, Antioch University Seattle A growing awareness of Edible Education around the world is crucial to a deeper understanding of personal, physical, mental, and global well-being. We have for too long denied the importance of understanding that food, what we consider food, and how we source, distribute, price, purchase, and consume that food plays in the role of improving or deteriorating our health and planet. Without greater need for the implementation of edible education, and the understanding of the role food plays in our environment, in our cultural, health, and social justice issues we quite honestly will not have the place to discuss and improve upon it. Food is not only a want but a need for all living things. Now is the time to realize that our old understanding of food and its purpose needs to be uprooted and replanted in a new fertile learning environment.
Amber Williams
MAEd Candidate, Antioch University Seattle The purpose of Edible Education is to educate and reconnect children and adults alike with the source of their food, with hands on experience through the context of science and nature and the world we live in. Through the process of bringing the garden to the kitchen table and then back to the garden, allows for the integration of practical knowledge and growth of the spirit, which taps into the universal idea that good food brings us all together.
