Summit Schedule
CLICK HERE to download the final Youth Grow Summit program booklet.
TUESDAY, JUNE 28th
1:00-2:00PM: CHECK-IN (Plant Science Building 233)
During check-in, you will receive a program packet with a full summit schedule, campus map and other materials. You will also get a chance to sign up for workshops and work parties!
**Out-of-town participants: After you check-in, you will have the opportunity to store your overnight belongings (backpack, sleeping bag, etc) in a room that will be secure and locked throughout the day. You will have access to the room again in the evening to pick up your belongings before going to your accommodations for the night.
2:00-3:00PM: OPENING SESSION
3:00-4:00: GUEST SPEAKER
Barbara Lang: “Growing Your Community”
Barbara Lang is the founder of The Etiquette Factor™, a portal which provides tips and practical advice to help people present the best in themselves while learning how to build a community of relationships. Through storytelling, interactive exchanges and exercises, Barbara offers insights and strategies enabling people to feel, and behave, more self-confident when making introductions, engaging in conversation and following up with new acquaintances.
4:15-5:30PM: WORKSHOP SESSION 1
Trellises, Twine, and Knots – Helping Your Garden Grow Upwards
Description: As urban farmers in New York City we are severely limited by the size of our growing space–we have just half an acre to grow on for 39 markets over the course of the season. To make the most of our space, we build a lot of trellises to grow bigger and healthier plants. Come learn new techniques for building trellises using the materials you have on hand, as well as learn some essential knots for tying up your plants in the garden.
Presenters: East New York Farms
Building a Theory of Change: Strategy, Tactics and Timeline
Description: The workshop will build student and youth understanding of the concepts and practices of building effective strategies and using creative tactics to effect change in their schools and communities. The workshop aims to empower participants to actively evaluate their own school and community contexts and to develop theories of change. Break out sessions and feedback sessions allow participants to build relationships with fellow participants and to present the materials they actively create to the group.
Presenters: Reed Stedburger, Ren Ostry
Farm to School Part I: The Farm
Description: A brief presentation on the Youth Farm Project (a program which employs youth and volunteers from around the community while teaching/promoting the merits of local, sustainable, farming) and Localvores (a group of students at the Lehman Alternative Community School, Ithaca which works to process the produce from the farm and other local initiatives, distribute the food, and incorporate healthy, organic items into school lunches). Both are relatively young programs, and provide a good model for the early stages of creating a similar project. The presentation will be followed by a panel discussion led by youth from both programs.
Presenters: The youth on the panel are involved on various levels in Localvores and/or the Youth Farm Project.
5:30-6:45PM: DINNER
7:00-8:30PM: 4-H CAREER EXPLORATIONS OPENING ASSEMBLY
The Youth Grow Summit is a special event that is happening in partnership with 4-H Career Explorations. Career Explorations is a three-day event for youth on Cornell University campus. The purpose of this program is to provide youth with exposure to academic fields and career exploration, to develop leadership skills, to provide hands-on experience in a college setting and to introduce you to Cornell University. Read more about Career Ex here: http://nys4h.cce.cornell.edu/events/Pages/CareerEx.aspx
The 2011 theme of Career Explorations is “Community Gardens”. Youth Grow Summit participants will join Career Explorations participants for an Opening Assembly on Tuesday evening. The keynote speaker will be Sam Levin, one of three co-founders of Project Sprout, an organic, student-run garden on the grounds of Monument High School in Great Barrington, Mass. Sam, started this project as a freshman at Monument. Now in its fifth year, Project Sprout supplies the school’s cafeteria with fresh fruits and vegetables, helps feed the hungry in the community and serves as a living laboratory for students of the Monument school system.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29th
9:15-10:30am: WORKSHOP SESSION 2
Farming on the Hill!
Description: This workshop will make use of ongoing projects at Dilmun Hill Student Organic Farm to demonstrate low-input agricultural practices work on a small-scale student organic farm. Our workshop will be composed of three sessions, focused on concepts pertinent to projects at the farm – the Market Garden, the Growing Mosaics Garden (an experimental permaculture garden), and the Best Management Practices project (a research project investigating remediation techniques for contaminated soils).
Presenters: Dilmun Hill student farm managers
Leadership and Collaboration: What’s Your Style?
Description: How do you take in information? How do you process this information? What does this say about your personality and how you relate to others? This is an introduction to a way of self reflecting that will be useful for all youth leaders. In this workshop, we will engage in a lively process of moving along a continuum to gain self awareness. Then, we’ll work and discuss in small groups. This is an introduction, to open a door to a way of viewing leadership.
Presenter: Marcia Eames-Sheavly, Cornell Garden-Based Learning
Telling Your Story: Reflecting, Writing, and Sharing the Power of Food and Community
Description: Participants will engage in a variety of reflective activities to draw out memories of food and community. Using the framework of an “I am from…” poem (from Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching About Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word), participants will begin crafting their own powerful story of food—why it matters to them, how it is part of what makes them who they are, and what they will do about it now and for the future.
Presenter: Angela Hedstrom, Cornell Garden-Based Learning
Growing Green: Youth Enterprises & Aquaponics…in the City!
Description: This workshop will give audiences an overview of the Massachusetts Avenue Project, Growing Green and Growing Green Program components. It aims to show youth the process of starting a food-related youth enterprise, and create awareness of integrated urban agriculture techniques, with a focus on aquaponics.
Presenters: Massachusetts Avenue Project
10:30am-10:45am: BREAK
10:45am-12:00pm: WORKSHOP SESSION 3
Burgers and Fries and Shakes, Oh My!
Description: In this workshop participants will be introduced to basic nutrition and prevention concepts and understand how this information can change the course of their lives. They will also learn that it is not just about their health, but also about food justice and sustainability. Students will learn how food affects hair, skin, nails, and moods and emotions. They will also learn about school food issues, and make delicious “Go Green” smoothies.
Presenter: Amie Hamlin, New York Coalition for Healthy School Food (NYCHSF)
Social Justice and Local Food
Description: This workshop will give participants an overall look at national & local food justice initiatives, discuss the relevancy of a social justice approach to the food movement and tie in the importance of social justice in the sustainability movement.
Presenters: Kirtrina Baxter and Josh Dolan, Gardens 4 Humanity
Farm to School Part II: The Farm
Description: New Roots Charter School is a tuition-free high school dedicated to educating the next generation of leaders in sustainability and social justice. Located in the heart of downtown Ithaca, NRCS has developed partnerships with local farms, food suppliers and organizations working for food justice. In this workshop, we explore how a school with a limited budget can produce healthy meals with a local, sustainable emphasis and help participants understand the ways our faculty and staff have integrated lessons about food and local food systems into a variety of subject areas.
Presenters: Allyn Rosenbaum, Sarah Rubenstein-Gillis, Rebecca Rodomsky-Bish, & New Roots Charter School students
2:30-5:30pm: GARDEN WORK PARTIES
Dewitt Middle School Garden
DeWitt’s Vegetable Garden (the SUPER DUPER AWESOME SKILLAGE VEGGIE GARDEN OF DOOM AND BROCCOLI) would like to thank you for your interest in local food. The garden is an integral part of the 7th grade science program. Students plan, prepare their 3′X10′ plots, and sow and maintain crops in groups of 4. In the process they’re learning about soil composition, nutrition, plant biology and reproduction. When you arrive you’ll witness (and taste) the fruits of their labor and tour the facilities. The garden includes a deer fence, shed, water line, 3-bin compost station and 46 bins. There is always lots of exciting work to do in the garden. If you’d like to help out, we’ll be putting up some trellises, mounding potatoes, mulching paths and reinforcing the deer fence.
Ithaca Children’s Garden
Come experience the Ithaca Children’s Garden, a waterfront public garden that serves children, youth and families of Ithaca and surrounds. We’ll start out with a short walk around the garden and introduce some of the programs we offer to the community, as well as a few different projects teens can help out with. Get a sense of what it’s like to operate and maintain an urban children’s garden! Some of the highlights? A giant turtle named Gaia, a child-sized bird house, a large vegetable garden, and a recycled bottle greenhouse. And of course, making a difference for our small organization and the communities we serve.
Dilmun Hill Student Organic Farm
We are a student-run farm that has been practicing sustainable agriculture on Cornell University’s campus for more than a decade. Our mission is to provide students, faculty, staff and community with opportunities for experiential learning, group collaboration and research. Throughout the year we host work parties where volunteers work in the fields and experience the latest in sustainable agriculture practices. The student managers and steering committee members collaborate with the Organic Coordinator and Faculty Advisor to provide leadership in farm operations and disseminate information through education and outreach. We also collaborate with various organizations on campus, such as McDaniels Nut Grove (MNG). Our popular campus farm stand offers Dilmun Hill produce for sale from June through October and we supply local produce to Cornell Dining and Manndible Cafe in season.
Chestnut Hill Community Garden
Chestnut Hill Community Garden was started on 10-10-10 as part of a global day of action against climate change with help from Gardens 4 Humanity, 350.org, Chestnut residents, the West Hill Community Organization, West Village Urban 4-H, LACS students and staff as well
as residents of Ecovillage. The goal of this garden is to provide a place for residents and neighborhood to grow traditional foods, learn to grow food in our climate and a place for the community to come together to celebrate.
5:30-7:00PM: DINNER
7:00-9:00PM: EVENING FILM NIGHT
Green Guerillas Presentation
Green Guerrillas Youth Media Tech Collective is an innovative, grassroots job-training program which values teen’s creative insights and capacities to transform their reality as leaders and participants for change.
Green Guerrillas make their own media by analyzing important social, political, economic and environmental issues which affect their lives. Green Guerrillas connect the dots between 500-year-old issues of prejudice, inequality, oppression, and discrimination with the increased use of policing, exploitation, resource extraction, and incarceration nationwide and abroad.
http://www.guerrilla-griots.org/greenguerrillas.html
Film: The Greenhorns
The Greenhorns is a documentary film that explores the lives of America’s young farming community — its spirit, practices, and needs. As the nation experiences a groundswell of interest in sustainable lifestyles, we see the promising beginnings of an agricultural revival. Young farmers’ efforts feed us safe food, conserve valuable land, and reconstitute communities split apart by strip malls. It is the filmmakers’s hope that by broadcasting the stories and voices of these young farmers, we can build the case for those considering a career in agriculture — to embolden them, to entice them, and to recruit them into farming.
THURSDAY, JUNE 30th
9:15-10:30am: WORKSHOP SESSION 4
Growing Gourmet Mushrooms for Fun and Profit
Description: This workshop will introduce participants to the practice of cultivating gourmet mushrooms, which can be a good vehicle for entrepreneurial ventures. We will introduce the mushroom life cycle and then demonstrate basic techniques for growing shiitake on logs, oysters on used coffee grounds or sawdust, and king stropharias in mulched garden beds. We will even take a look at a naturalized bed of king stropharias growing right behind Cornell’s Ag Quad! Participants will leave with a good sense of the pros and cons of growing each species for fun and profit.
Presenters: Ari Rockland-Miller & Steve Gabriel, Cornell Garden-Based Learning
Building Community with Permaculture
Description: This session explores engaging people in our land-based projects and using our projects to build strong, safe and inclusive communities. We will discuss why community engagement is important, why it is key to our success as small farmers, & how to identify and create leaders from our communities. Discussions will be framed using permaculture principles and examples from community organizations practicing this work. The workshop will be a mix of group activities and discussion along with a slide show and explanation of permaculture principles and their application in a community context.
Presenter: Liz Falk, CCE Tompkins
Kitchen Gardens 101
Description: You can cook from the garden 365 days a year! Keep plants indoors and out, get to know nearby growers and gleaners and learn to preserve the harvest. In this workshop you will taste a variety of seasonal greens (e.g. kale, arugula, mache, mizuna) and prepare a basic vinaigrette dressing. You will also practice your storytelling skills by sharing a tale from the kitchen or garden.
Presenter: Julia Hastings-Black
Adult Educators Breakout
Description: An informal, open space for adult educators to meet and discuss ideas, challenges, possible collaborations, etc with regards to support young leaders. All chaperones and adult educators are encouraged to participate.
Moderator: Marcia Eames-Sheavly
10:30-10:45am: BREAK
10:45-11:45am: WORKSHOP SESSION 5
Young Changemakers Panel
Description: Come hear from five inspiring young changemakers. They have each been asked to respond to the question: “What is the change you want to see in the food system today and what role do young people have in contributing to this change? Please speak to this prompt from your experience as a young changemaker.” There will be time for Q&A with the panel as well.
Panelists:
Jacob Eisman, Six Circles Farm
Elizabeth Goodwin, Dilmun Hill Student Organic Farm
Adriana Ragland, Massachusetts Avenue Project
Peace Titilawo, East New York Farms
Fil Eden, Ithaca activist
Open Space
Description: Open Space is a facilitation method in which participants can identify specific issues they are interested in discussing, self-select into discussion groups, and then talk about the issue with other people who are also interested in it.
As a young person, what skills or strategies would help you become a better community leader? What conversations do you want to have with your peers? What do you want to know about the work that other participants are doing? Open Space is your opportunity to hold these conversations or any others! Propose a topic and see who comes.
Facilitators: Whoever proposes a discussion topic takes responsibility for facilitating a discussion on that theme.
Four Principles and One Law of Open Space:
1. Whoever comes is the right people.
2. Whenever it starts is the right time.
3. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.
4. When it’s over, it’s over.
The “Law of Mobility”: If at any time during a conversation you find yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor contributing, go someplace else. If you see more than one topic you want to discuss, split your time among the sessions, being respectful of the fact that a conversation you are joining is in progress and will not begin again when you enter it.
Capnote Presentation Planning
Description: Youth Grow Summit participants will join Career Explorations participants for a Closing Assembly on Thursday afternoon. In keeping with the community gardening theme and as a follow-up to Sam Levin’s keynote speech, the Youth Grow Summit has been given the incredible opportunity of delivering the capnote presentation!! You and your peers will have the opportunity to share your story and passion for growing food and healthy communities to an audience of over 500 of your peers! What an incredible opportunity to get our message about the importance of just and sustainable community food systems heard!
If you enjoy public speaking and are interested in being part of the capnote presentation, please come to this workshop session!
Facilitator: Christine Hadekel
11:45am-12:45pm: LUNCH
1-2pm: 4-H Career Explorations — Closing Assembly
Youth Grow Summit participants will join Career Explorations participants for a Closing Assembly on Thursday afternoon. In keeping with the community gardening theme and as a follow-up to Sam Levin’s keynote speech, the Youth Grow Summit has been given the incredible opportunity of delivering the capnote presentation!! You and your peers will have the opportunity to share your story and passion for growing food and healthy communities to an audience of over 500 of your peers! What an incredible opportunity to get our message about the importance of just and sustainable community food systems heard!
2PM: Travel back home.