In the following TED talk, Pam Warhurst, Chair of the Board of the Forestry Commission in Great Britain, discusses the creation of Incredible Edible.  Incredible Edible is a world-wide initiative Warhurst co-founded which is dedicated to growing food locally and which has also helped to implement food and garden education programs in schools and communities.

The local food movement, Warhurst states, “is a movement for everyone…if you eat, you’re in.” The language of food, Warhurst states, cuts across age, income, and culture, and “we are all part of the solution.”

Warhust urges communities to “make food visible” and to “encourage our schools to take [food issues] seriously.” “If we want to inspire the farmers of tomorrow,” Warhurst states, “let us say to every school: create a sense of purpose around the importance of the environment, local food, and soils.  Put that at the heart of your school culture and you will create a different generation.”

Ready to get involved in the local food movement?  Learn about specific vegetables and how to grow them with our Growing Guides. Check out our Seed to Salad project which engages young people in growing salad gardens of their own.  Get involved with Youth Grow, a leadership program that trains youth to become actively involved in learning about and transforming their local food systems.  Read about Discovering our Food System, an experiential learning program about how food gets from farm to table and how we, as eaters, are part of the process.

Take advantage of free webinars hosted by the USDA People’s Garden. Two more to happen this week, one with CGBL’s Liz Falk presenting. Check it out!

1. Composting and Compost Use – How, Why and Where    -    12/12/2012   12 Noon – 1:00 pm EST

   

   Instructor: Al Rattie – Director, Market Development – US Composting Council
   Sellersville Pensylvania

   Cary Oshins – Director, Education & Outreach – US Composting Council
   Sellersville Pensylvania

   Wanna make your own compost? You can produce high quality compost on a small-scale, but it’s important to use quality control standards from start to finish. Learn how you can get started, what to do with what you produce, and the many benefits and uses of compost.

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2. Best Practices in Starting and Sustaining a School Garden    -    12/13/2012   12 Noon – 1:00 pm EST

   

   Instructor: Liz Falk – Professional Development Educator, Cornell Garden-Based Learning
   Ithaca, New York

   We know that garden-based learning increases a child’s likelihood to eat fresh vegetables, can increase a child’s attention span, and foster positive relationships across ages. Learn best practices on how to incorporate gardens into schools, to make garden projects successful and sustainable, and to encourage participation from others in your community.

How many people in the world secretly dream of becoming an artist? Of capturing the beauty in the natural world all around them, recording its treasures?  During the past 6 years, I have had the immense pleasure of teaching the type of lifelong learner who takes this leap, through three sequential botanical illustration courses.  Students in these courses, each of which is taught twice annually, have come from all over the world.  Pakistan, New Zealand, Australia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Russia, Canada, Germany, the Dominican Republic, and the United States represent some of the wonderfully far flung places from which students draw and paint, and then, scan and submit their work for review, along with their words of reflection.

Many (most?) students have never taken an on-line course.  They initially offer a range of responses to Moodle, the interface through which the courses are taught, but all adjust and settle into a routine, immersed in the essential elements of these courses: reading in preparation for a lesson; engaging in a plethora of drawing and painting exercises, depending on the course, which they will scan and upload for feedback; writing reflectively about what they have learned, how they are learning it, and how they are celebrating their learning (or overcoming their challenges!); and talking with one another in a student forum.

There are no ‘lectures.’ Students can be in any time zone, working at their own pace, through the weekly lessons, for a period of about 6 ½ weeks.

Interested in learning more?  Click on these links to find out more about Botanical Illustration 1: Basic Drawing Techniques, Botanical Illustration 2: Working with Watercolor, and Botanical Illustration 3: Advanced Techniques.

Participants receive a certificate of completion from Cornell’s Office of Continuing Education.  Participants who take all three courses also receive a certificate of completion from the Department of Horticulture.

Join us!

It can be a challenge to meaningfully integrate gardening and learning.  We really like the way Angela McGregor Hedstrom uses essential questions to expand on the gardening experience, and organize the big ideas, particularly with our youngest audiences.

Read this succinct and well-written article, and get started soon!

Angela McGregor Hedstrom taught at the Dryden Elementary School and Happy Way Childcare Center, Dryden, NY, while working with Cornell Garden-Based Learning.

CGBL September Newsletter –

In 2012, Cornell Garden-based Learning revived a Cooperative Extension tradition of focusing on a yearly theme to promote educational resources statewide. With the theme of “Soil & Compost”… See entire newsletter

The summer cohort of botanical illustration courses is already coming to a close.

Nearly 40 hard working students have produced images in graphite and ink, as well as in media ranging from color pencil and pen, to watercolor, charcoal and chalk, and pastel.  Witness these beautiful renderings by Jodi Robison!

Registration will be live in December for a January course run with limited enrollment.  Email me14@cornell.edu to be put on the list to notify.

On-line Garden-Based Learning courses for the Fall

The following horticulture 6 week distance learning courses will be offered this fall for school, community-based educators, or volunteers who want to enhance their garden-based learning program. For each of these courses, participants earning a cumulative outstanding or satisfactory grade will be awarded 3 Cornell University Continuing Education Units and a certificate of participation.

Planning and Organizing Sustainable Gardening Programs – Starts Sept. 4.

Looking to start a school or community-based garden program, but do not know where to begin? This course focuses on the foundations and benefits of garden-based learning, and provides the tools, resources, and collaborative support needed to plan, organize and develop a successful and sustainable gardening program that fits your organization’s needs.

Teaching and Learning in the School Garden – Starts Oct. 8.

Focusing on the foundations, benefits, and teaching strategies of garden-based learning (GBL), participants will build a toolbox of resources for developing a school gardening program that meets cross-curricular needs. Case study, research, and GBL resources are evaluated through group discussion, learning activities, and reflective journals. Educational theory will be put into practice using real-world tools, through collaboration, practicum, small and whole group discussion, lesson plan assignments, and the final portfolio project.

Find out more about these and other distance learning courses offered by the Department of Horticulture at our distance learning site.

Recently, I had a new experience.  At a garden-based learning workshop, a couple of boys saw a worm on a roll of sod, which we were using to create a sod sofa, and refused to pick up the roll.  It was my first experience of boys showing fear or repulsion toward a worm.

As such, this Wall Street Journal article, Mom Was Right: Go Outside really resonated with me.  So many of us are involved in the increasingly sober conversation about the loss of time spent in the outdoors. Here is another well-written call to get outside, citing, in this case, the cognitive benefits.

Gardening is a way to re-build the connection, and it’s easy, inexpensive, and accessible.  You don’t need a large park to engage with an entire world of soil and what lives in it, and of course, plants that produce food and beauty.

We hope you are actively gardening this summer.  I worry that our long-time number one national pastime of gardening may soon be replaced with….Facebook?

Back by popular demand, we will offer a session of our on-line Introduction to Garden Design course this summer.

We are fortunate to have Melinda (Mindy) Appold, a landscape architect  with 15 years of experience in the field, currently a graduate student at Cornell, teaching the course this summer.  You may want to enroll to take advantage of her considerable experience and passion for teaching!

The course will be offered June 11 – July 28, an ideal time of year to engage in this study.  As with all our courses, it will integrate readings, exercises you do on your own, reflective writing, and participation in a lively forum with others.  You take it on your own time, in your own location.

You’ll find the online course page and syllabus here.

To help make your experience and transition to working with the interface an easy one, you’ll need:

• A recent version of an internet browser, such as Firefox or Internet Explorer.
• Acrobat reader, so that you can read pdfs.
• A good, working scanner, which you will use to scan your work, save it in jpg or pdf format, and upload to the interface.

Hope you join us!

Cornell Garden-Based Learning will again offer our suite of three botanical illustration courses on-line this June.  This web-based instruction is highly supportive and individually directed, and can be taken from any location in the world with internet access.  Botanical Illustration (BT) 1: Basic Drawing Techniques is aimed at the beginner who is getting started with drawing, or returning to it after many years. BT 2: Working with Watercolor is for the beginning watercolor painter, and BT3: Advanced Technique is ideal for the student who is ready to commit to going further with proficiency, technique, media, and portfolio development.  Courses last for just 6 1/2 weeks, and are $500 per course; our course fee will increase in 2013.  You can receive a certificate of participation from Cornell University’s Office of Continuing Education for each course.  Students who complete all three courses receive a certificate of completion from the Department of Horticulture.

If you have never taken an on-line course before, this could be ideal for you.  Individualized instruction, reflective writing, and the opportunity to converse with others in a forum are our signature elements.

You will need: a recent version of an internet browser, such as Firefox or Internet Explorer; Acrobat reader, so that you can read pdf’s; a good, working scanner, which you will use to scan your work, save it in jpg or pdf format, and upload to the interface.

To learn more about how to enroll, please visit the Department of Horticulture distance learning website, at Cornell University.

We hope you join us, and look forward to ‘meeting’ you on-line!

For other course related questions, please contact Marcia Eames-Sheavly, me14@cornell.edu