Teachers in Farm To School Program To Be Recognized Today

A Decatur Farm to School (DF2S) Teacher Workshop Showcase will be held 5:30-7 p.m. Monday, Dec. 12, at the 4/5 Academy at Fifth Avenue.

The newest graduates of the DF2S workshop series led by the will be recognized.

The DF2S website says,

The overall goal of the workshop series was to empower and inspire CSD employees to incorporate Farm to School concepts into their daily, standards-based instruction, as well as introduce them to community resources. 

The workshops included food, farm and nutrition lesson plans, hands-on cooking and taste testing activities, and in-depth organic gardening practices. It provided training and resources for teachers to use while designing experiences that integrate Farm to School into classroom learning.

DF2S organizers said four teacher projects will be highlighted Monday:

Glennwood Elementary

• Susanna Shewan’s class learned about goods and services that people get from chickens.  Their lesson involved generating questions to guide their inquiry, visiting a local coop, learning about chickens and journaling what they learned.
• Carla Stanford and Amelia Copp’s project involved a school-wide education initiative to highlight Farm to School foods weekly through morning announcements, Friday Community Circles, and weekly newsletters. They wanted to teach students important facts about the Farm to School food for the month informing them about when the food of the month would be offered in the cafeteria.

• Akilah Saffold and Allison Mansfield’s lesson involved having the students take a gastronomic journey to learn about plant parts.  They did a pretest to measure if the students knew about plant parts that they eat.  The rest of the lesson involved eating basil leaves (pesto), celery stalks, pumpkin seeds, and pea pods.  They created a video that will be shown at the showcase.

• Martina Baerman guided her class in learning about the seasons.  To make the connection with Farm to School the class made a four season model that included plants that are planted and harvested in each season.  As a final project, her class will be making a 2012 calendar.