Category Archives: Professional Development

Announcing Incubator Fellowships for Emerging School & Community Leaders

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Three Types of Incubator Fellowships Offered for 2018-19
Deadline for Fellowship Applications is June 8

The Leadership in Edible Education Certificate 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)

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More information about our LEE Program can be found at: http://educultureproject.org/leadership-in-edible-education/

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

Click Here to RSVP & Receive Directions

 Share food stories  Talk with Program Directors  Meet Program Graduates  Visit Field Class Sites  Learn more about this unique program  

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Taking Applications for 2018-19 Leadership in Edible Education Program

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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.

The first field course in the 2018-19 program, Education Towards Food & Community, begins Summer 2018.  Space is limited. Click here to learn more about the Leadership in Edible Education Certificate Program.

First Graduates of Leadership in Edible Education

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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.

OWWCC Makes Spring ’16 Delegation to Manzanar

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IMG_1935This Spring, Only What We Can Carry Project took a group of current and former Bainbridge Islanders to the former Manzanar Relocation Center, a WWII concentration camp in the High Sierras of California where the Bainbridge Island Japanese American community were sent in March 1942.

This is OWWCC’s fifth Delegation to Manzanar, a community service project which pairs local educators, responsible for teaching and learning about the Japanese American experience of Exclusion, with Bainbridge Islanders who lived through that period, many whom were the age of the students whose teachers accompany them.  Our aim is help enhance and enrich the culture of a curriculum, school and community whose history is completely interwoven with this story.

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What will be the living messages (the stories, the lessons learned, the practices, the hopes) that current and future generations will carry about the Japanese American Exclusion after this generation who lived through that WWII experience have passed?  OWWCC Delegations to Manzanar have been an opportunity for Bainbridge Islanders, those that lived through it and those now responsibility for teaching and learning about this subject, to wrestle with this question. These journeys of discovery have charted new educational territory for those who have participated.

This year, OWWCC brought three 11th American Studies educators from Bainbridge High School, Larry Holland, James Seemuller, and Kirrin Coleman.  This journey of bearing witness was timed to take place the week before they would be studying US Foreign Policy during WWII and Japanese American Exclusion with their students.

We were also honored to have Bainbridge Island School Distirct Superintendent, Faith Chapel, join us on this delegation.  A Japanese American, Faith’s parents were both interned and met in the Poston Relocation Center in Arizona.

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The Bainbridge Island educators accompanied Matsue Nishimori Watanabe, along with her daughter Naomi, Frances Kitamoto Ikegami, and Victor Takemoto, whose families were forced to leave their homes on Bainbridge Island during WWII (pictured L-R in photo above). Mrs. Watanabe and Mr. Takemoto were in the freshman class of Bainbridge High School, and Mrs. Ikegami was five years old, in March 1942.  We are grateful to this community elders for their time and stories, so that we might better understand what it was like to walk in their shoes.  We deeply appreciate how they have chosen to share the challenges and woundedness of their youth, so that upcoming generations might learn from their tragedies and triumphs.

OWWCC Project Co-Directors, Katy Curtis and Jon Garfunkel guided the delegation.  Our group is grateful to the National Park Service staff at the Manzanar Historic Site, especially Chief of Interpretation, Alisa Lynch, who made our journey of discover so welcoming, engaging, lived and meaningful.

Click here to learn more about OWWCC’s Delegations to Manzanar.

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Leadership in Edible Education Taking Root

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EduCulture and Antioch University Seattle launch a new
Leadership in Edible Education Certificate Program
to serve K-12 and Community Based Education in the Puget Sound Region

Through an on-going partnership with the Master of Arts in Education Program at Antioch University Seattle, and their professional endorsement program in Environmental and Sustainability Education, EduCulture is launching a groundbreaking Leadership in Edible Education Certificate Program, designed for formal and informal educators, and other professionals, who are interested in making a difference through edible education, in schools and the wider community.

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.  It is one area of education that threads through all aspects of school culture, from what and where students learn to what they eat, to how they recycle.  Just as our school food chains reflect the wider community food chains that support them, so does the culture of the curriculum have the opportunity to connect with the culture of the school and the wider community.

Farm,tug of war 1

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. Its roots in American education date back a century to the development of home economics.  In 1900, the educator John Dewey suggested that the “school itself shall be made a genuine form of active community life, instead of a place set apart in which to learn lessons.” (School and Society) More than a century later, his wisdom still rings true.
The Leadership in Edible Education Certificate Program aims to help define this evolving field of study, examine best practices and programmatic landscapes, and help students find a place for themselves in this growing educational movement.
Antioch University Seattle has been a dedicated partner in the development of this Leadership Program.  “Our Masters Program and indeed the whole campus is quite excited about this first-ever professional education initiative,” said Ed Mikel of Antioch U., co-founder and director of this program.  “It represents an area of primary study, practice, policy, and everyday life that is vital to the health and well-being of all peoples and, indeed, the whole web of life on earth.”

 FFCE10, final dialogue

“We are looking to attract the trailblazers in edible education who want to reflect on and deepen their practice, as well as those new or on the fringes of this emerging field who want to make a difference but need an educational grounding to enter into this field,” says EduCulture’s Jon Garfunkel, who co-founded this program with Ed Mikel.

“We are building a professional learning community for classroom teachers who want to get their students out to the garden or farm, the Food Service Directors who want to build a CTE program for students to learn and work in the school kitchen, the farmers or leaders in the food community who see education as part of their mission and vision. This Leadership Program is about enhancing and enriching school and community wellness by connecting place and taste to how we live, eat and learn.”

FFCEbeans

This Leadership in Edible Education Program carries the follow aims and objectives:

  • Building professional repertoires
  • Focus on Culture of Curriculum, Culture of Schools and Culture of Communities
  • Becoming an educational laboratory and community brain trust
  • Bridging Classroom & Communities
  • Building Learning Communities
  • Cultivating school and community leadership
  • Calling upon the emerging expertise of participants
  • Lived field studies centered in actual school and community programs
  • Serving multiple sectors and stakeholders
  • Education for Social Justice & Community Heritage
  • Reclaiming parts of our past in order to seed our future
  • Strengthening and preserving our regional and local food communities
  • Educating this and future generations of co-producers

Carrots

This certificate is spread over four quarterly courses aimed at building the professional repertoire of those who seek to work in the field of edible education.

Summer 2015 (July 9, 16, 23, 30), Leadership in Edible Education I
Education Towards Food, Citizenship & Community

Fall 2015 (Sept.-Nov.), Leadership in Edible Education II
Food in Schools and Postsecondary Institutions

Winter 2016 (Jan.-March), Leadership in Edible Education III
Edible Education I: Theory & Practice

Spring 2016 (April-June), Leadership in Edible Education IV
Edible Education II: Field Experience & Culminating Field Project

This program is open to formal and informal educators. Field classes for each quarterly course will be held over four days, alternating between Seattle and Bainbridge Island/Kitsap.  Course work is offered in multiple professional education options, from AUS Degree and Environmental & Sustainability Education Endorsement Credit to Continuing Education Credits and Clock hours.  There is also a Core Field Course option for informal educators or those not needing credit. The Leadership in Edible Education Certificate of Completion is received through participation in all four courses. Courses I-III may be taken independently with same credit options. Scholarships have been made available for people of color to participate in this program.  We also have reduced tuition options for people based on financial need.

To learn more about the Leadership in Edible Education Certificate Program, visit our website: http://educultureproject.org/leadership-in-edible-education/

To learn more about the first course in the program, Education Towards Food , Citizenship & Community, offered this summer, visit our website:
http://educultureproject.org/education-to-food-citizenship-and-community/

To inquire or register for this program, contact: admin@EducultureProject.org or call 206-780-5797

For more about Antioch University Seattle’s degree/endorsement options, contact: emikel@Antioch.edu

Summer 2014 Programs with EduCulture

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Check out our Summer Farm-Table Dinners, and
Programs for Formal & Informal Educators

Wednesday, July 23, 10a-3p
Eating What We Most Need to Learn: An Orientation to Your Food Community
Various Sites on Bainbridge Island
Class Size: 6-12, Tuition: $65, includes lunch

Learn about community food systems and experience the ingredients that make for a healthy food community.  Participants will follow, examine, and taste their way through a locally grown food chain from production on a working farm to distribution through a grocery store to consumption at a restaurant. Snacks and Lunch included.

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Tuesday, July 29, 10a-2p
Approaching Edible Education I: Why are we doing this anyway? Grounding a Rationale for Edible Education in PreK-12 Schools *
EduCulture and Partner Sites, Bainbridge Island
Open to Formal & Informal Educators. Class Size: 8-16
Tuition: $55, includes lunch. Clock hours available by request.

What are major considerations informing edible education in K-12 schooling? We will explore the major “Why’s” that help us, as educators, ground a solid, vibrant rationale for the many ways in which food plays a role in our schools: from the classroom, to the curriculum, to the lunch room.

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Thursday, July 31, 10a-2p
Approaching Edible Education II: What Does Edible Education Look Like? Curricular Considerations and Pathways for PreK-12 Schools *
EduCulture and Partner Sites, Bainbridge Island
Open to Formal & Informal Educators. Class Size: 8-16
Tuition: $55, includes lunch. Clock hours available by request.

What are major curricular considerations informing edible education in K-12 schooling? We will explore the major pathways for integrating edible education into the core curriculum (math, science, social studies…), as well as other curricular opportunities to address the study of food in our schools: from the classroom, to the garden or farm, to the lunch room.

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Saturday, August 2, 5:30-8:30p
Foodshed to Table Summer Convivium & Dinner
Laughing Crow Farm & Bainbridge Vineyards, Bainbridge Island

Join EduCulture for a special outdoor foodshed to table dinner this summer. Enjoy a locally grown, farm-style meal and support locally grown edible education in the process. This foodshed to fork dinner is part of a series seasonal dinners EduCulture is developing to bring people together around the wild and cultivated food traditions of our Pacific Northwest bioregion, some call Salmon Nation, including from our partner farms.  EduCulture is partnering with The Food Shed to help shape and deliver a menu built on what is seasonal and regional, all sourced locally, fairly and sustainably.

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Tuesday, August 5, 1-4p
Approaching Edible Education III: How Do I Develop an Edible Education Program for My School, Garden, Farm or Kitchen? Addressing Planning Considerations, Opportunities and Challenges *
EduCulture and Partner Sites, Bainbridge Island
Open to Formal & Informal Educators. Class Size: 6-12
Tuition: $35. Clock hours available by request. Permission of the Instructor required.

What are major programmatic considerations informing edible education in K-12 schooling? How do we design edible education programs at the curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular levels for the classroom, school garden, neighboring farm, school lunch, and other school and food community assets?  This seminar is designed for those developing an edible education program to have a professional learning environment in which to more fully examine and enrich their program design, planning, and outcomes.

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* Approaching Edible Education I, II & III were designed to be taken as a series, but may be taken as independent classes.

* All Edible Education Classes will close with a wine tasting from Bainbridge Vineyards!

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Thursday, August 7, 10a-4p
Approaching the Study of Japanese American Exclusion in Elementary & Secondary Education
Various Sites on Bainbridge Island
Open to Formal & Informal Educators. Class Size: 8-16
Tuition: $65, includes lunch. Clock hours available by request.

Through our Only What We Can Carry Project, you will visit key heritage sites and follow the lives of Bainbridge Island Japanese American Families who immigrated from Japan, established livelihoods, became citizens, then were forced into concentration camps during WWII.  Spend the day exploring historic Suyematsu Farm, Bainbridge Gardens, Bainbridge Island Historical Museum, and the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial.  You will dialogue with original Bainbridge Islanders whose families lived through WWII and the Exclusion. The aim of this workshop is to help you as an educator to bear witness and bring this period of history alive for your students, while modeling field classes and learning experiences you can facilitate for students.

To register or learn more about these programs, contact EduCulture by email, admin@EducultureProject.org, or call 206-780-5797.

*please note: programs subject to change

EduCulture Makes Field Trip to Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, CA

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Amongst the many farm-school field experiences we were facilitating on Bainbridge Island, a team from EduCulture took a professional field trip of our own.  On October 21, Board Member Ed Mikel, also representing Antioch University Seattle, Leslee Pate, program partner from the Food Shed, and myself (JG) spent the day in Berkeley, CA visiting the original Edible Schoolyard at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School and engaging in a professional dialogue with staff from the Edible Schoolyard Project.

The Edible Schoolyard is the vision of Alice Waters, renowned culinary innovator and grandmother of the edible education movement.  Her vision has not only become a locally grown reality for a public middle school in her Berkeley community, it has become a model for what edible education can look like at any school. Over the past few years, I have had the honor of connecting with Alice Waters as a delegate to Terra Madre, in Turin, Italy during 2010 & 2012.  Her principles of edible education have been closely aligned with EduCulture’s, and the mission of the Edible Schoolyard has served as a great inspiration for our locally grown work.

ESY

Jon Garfunkel and Alice Waters at Terra Madre 2010

Over this past summer, we were approached by the Edible Schoolyard Project and began a meaningful professional dialogue with their staff that led to this special opportunity for a site visit and deeper discussion with ESY staff about the current and future state of edible education.

ESY Garden[1] The Edible Schoolyard garden at MLK Jr. Middle School, Berkeley, CA

Bearing witness to what has been cultivated at MLK Middle School, from the school garden to the classroom kitchen, was a tremendous professional treat for our team.  The one-acre garden replaced an old school parking lot and now includes a greenhouse, chicken coop, and African style bee hives, along with a variety of vegetables and fruits that make their way into the classroom kitchen and sometimes school lunch. The garden is well integrated into the school campus and is open to the neighborhood community when school is not is session. The 900 students in grades 6-8 cycle through a 5-7 week garden based curriculum followed by a similar kitchen based curriculum each school year that is directly connected to their core curriculum in math, science and social studies.

Short Video of the Edible Schoolyard Kitchen

The way the ESY Berkeley staff and MLK Middle School teachers have created a culture of curriculum that is threaded within the culture of the school and culture of the community is truly impressive.  ESY Project operates a global web based hub for edible education across the planet. I also admired the way they are striving to frame all of this work within the formal K-12 landscape, in a series of concentric circles of professional relationships from the classroom to school to district to state to nation, and beyond.

ESY Visit Signs[1]Colorful signs identify the garden’s fruits and vegetables

It was a treat to talk shop with the ESY team, who left us much to chew on.  In reflecting on this experience, it was powerful and meaningful to see the parallels in our approaches to edible education, given the respective paths each of our projects has taken in developing.  We all left feeling professionally fed and nourished with a fuller well of educational energy and inspiration.

We are grateful for the gracious hospitality extended to our EduCulture team, and look forward to developing program opportunities to collaborate with ESY.

 

ESYGroupPhoto[1](L-R) Ed Mikel (Global Source Board Member & Antioch University Seattle Faculty), Emilie Gioia (Digital Director of ESY Project), Jon Garfunkel, and Kyle Cornforth (Director of ESY Berkeley) after a meaningful professional dialogue at the ESY Campus.

Click here for more about the Edible Schoolyard Project 

Click here for more about Terra Madre

EduCulture Partners to Launch 1st ever “Specialization in Edible Education”

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EduCulture is proud to be partnering on another ground breaking professional education program with our higher education partner Antioch University Seattle.  Edible education is an up and coming pathway to teach preK-12 students about sustainability and connections to land, our health, and our communities. This summer, we invite you to join a cadre of graduate students, formal & informal educators, and farmers to participate in the first ever course specializing in Edible Education!

Aims & Outcomes of this Pilot Course for K-12 Education:

  • Understanding food in context
  • Examining the role and place of food in our schools
  • Developing a better understanding of edible education in theory and practice
  • Understanding theories and practices that inform Edible Education curriculum and link to what children are already learning
  • Delving into the world of Food Justice and edible democracy
  • Learning about our Northwest Foodshed through three local food communities
  • Build your professional repertoire in bridging classroom and communities
  • By participating in this course you will be an integral part of a pilot program leading towards a professional certificate in Edible Education.

Classes: July 25, Aug. 8, & Aug. 22, 10am-4pm

Locations: Suquamish, Bainbridge Island and Seattle

Offered in 3 Professional Education Tiers:

  • Degree Credit (2-3 credits EDUC 600-ESE)
  • Degree Auditing Option (EDUC 600-ESE)
  • Professional Development Option (up to 15 clock hours)

– For more info about the AUS Degree Tiers, contact: emikel@antioch.edu

– For more info about the Prof. Dev. Tier, contact: admin@EduCultureProject.org

Presented by Antioch U. Seattle through a Community Partnership with EduCulture.