Renew America Success Stories

"Common Roots"

Description

Common Roots is a community-based, interdisciplinary K-6 educational program developed by Food Works that teaches science, social studies, math, language arts, creative arts, ecology and community service through gardening.

Students learn math and science while designing the gardens. They learn ecology, chemistry and biology in tending them, and they learn agronomy, social studies and group dynamics during harvest and preparation. The program encourages community involvement and is flexible enough that it can be integrated into virtually any elementary school setting.

"The old saying that we learn by doing drives the program," says Jeff Teitelbaum, Principal of Barnet Elementary in Montpelier." Common Roots is a way to bring all of the disciplines that schools have always taught, together under the themes of food, culture and ecology. Its basic design is to provide our students and teachers with real, hands-on experience upon which we hang all of their learning."

Joseph Kiefer and Martin Kemple established Food Works in 1987 in response to what they believed was a declining sense of connectedness within our communities. As people have become removed from the production and preparation of their own food, they have become disassociated from the ecosystem and, as a result, the natural laws that sustain us all are being broken. Common Roots is a way to restore this connection, to nurture respect for the environment and to strengthen our communities.

Traditionally, says Kiefer, "we teach children how to make a living, but not how to live." The Common Roots program, now implemented in numerous schools, does both.

Program Highlights

Program Development

• Before being introduced into the curriculum, the Common Roots program is reviewed by school administrators, teachers, parents, community members and local businesses who all must agree to participate actively in the introduction and development of the curriculum in their school.
• Supporters of the program attend a two-hour awareness workshop to orient them to the program. Throughout the year teachers attend workshops and seasonal in-service training programs (e.g., "From Seed to Bread," "The Earthworm Compost Farm," "Living Water") to help integrate the Common Roots program into their existing agenda.
• The Food Works program can be adapted to virtually any curriculum. Its flexibility allows it to serve best the needs of a particular community.
• The curriculum is designed so that what is learned in one grade is applicable to the next.

• Each class creates an indoor garden that students tend according to the demands of the season.
• The food grown in the garden parallels local agriculture and the historic period being studied by a class (e.g., fifth graders studying Colonial America would grow a garden to prepare food eaten during the Colonial period).
• Interdisciplinary skills are taught during the entire gardening process. Math and science skills are developed in building the garden beds and preparing the soil. The nutritional value of food offers insights into biology, and the ongoing cooperative effort teaches group planning and problem solving skills.

Interdisciplinary Activities

• Students study, research and explore numerous facets of ecology, including adaptation of species, the diets of local flora and fauna, and the health of ecosystems.
• Community members participate in the project in numerous ways. Local businesses can donate gardening materials, parents and community members can aid in the construction of the gardens, senior citizens can highlight local heritage through oral histories.
• The children can engage in numerous traditionally extracurricular activities, such as putting on seasonal festivals, giving composting lessons, donating food from their gardens to local food banks and soup kitchens.

Vital Statistics

Program Management/Partnerships: Food Works provides the framework design, which is then implemented uniquely in each school. Participating schools include Main Street Middle School, Rumney Memorial School, Barnet School, Duxbury School, Newport Town School, Orange Central School, Peacham School, Pomfret School, Waits River Valley School, Wardsboro School, Warren School, Washington Village School, and Wheeler School. The Wheeler School has enetered into a cooperative relationship with The Gardeners' Supply Company to develop a "garden laboratory" for the students and community.

Budget: Started with a challenge grant of $15,000.

Community Served: Elementary school students and their parents who develop an appreciation for interdisciplinary learning and benefit from stronger community ties. The Wheeler School, in particular, serves a low-income, urban population.

Measures of Success:

Food grown in a garden at the Main Street Middle School was used to help stock the Montpelier Emergency Food Pantry.

The sixth grade class at Main Street Middle school developed the Montpelier Food Policy, a blueprint for local food production to ensure safe, affordable food for the city of Montpelier.

The above programs became the subject of a documentary film and the Montpelier Food Policy was introduced into the Congressional Record by Senator Patrick Leahy.

The Wheeler School fifth grade has begun work writing the Burlington Food Policy.

In schools where the program has been introduced, parental and community involvement with children's education has increased 20% - 30%.

Four Common Roots guidebooks have been developed:

The Wonderful World of Wigglers

Exploring the Secrets of the Meadow Thicket

Exploring the Forest with Grandforest Tree

In The Three Sisters Garden

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