This is an idea to improve schools by helping improve children's nutrition and life skills, while providing hands-on reinforcement of math, science, and reading.
Basically, a school would require students to grow and cook their own food. With a large garden for vegetables, and several independent kitchens, students could form groups and be responsible for the maintenance of the garden, along with planting and harvesting. Other groups could cook in the kitchens, rotating the students around the different stations in such a way as to make sure that they had had a chance to do each specific job at least once before they graduated.
In this way, students would be provided with fresh, unprocessed foods as well as a knowledge of both cooking and gardening.
An expanded model might include a simulated grocery store and a real anaerobic digestion system which would power the school, provide the garden with fertilizer, and teach children about energy, microbiology, complex systems, etc.
The logical conclusion of this pedagogic philosophy would be a school where the core subjects were taught through the very maintenance and operation of the school building itself.
Basically, a school would require students to grow and cook their own food. With a large garden for vegetables, and several independent kitchens, students could form groups and be responsible for the maintenance of the garden, along with planting and harvesting. Other groups could cook in the kitchens, rotating the students around the different stations in such a way as to make sure that they had had a chance to do each specific job at least once before they graduated.
In this way, students would be provided with fresh, unprocessed foods as well as a knowledge of both cooking and gardening.
An expanded model might include a simulated grocery store and a real anaerobic digestion system which would power the school, provide the garden with fertilizer, and teach children about energy, microbiology, complex systems, etc.
The logical conclusion of this pedagogic philosophy would be a school where the core subjects were taught through the very maintenance and operation of the school building itself.
