Global Source Education Presents:
Food, Farming, Culture and Education
Summer Institute 2007
Toward an Ecology of Sustainable
Schools and Community
Educator's Retreat, July 16-18, 9:30am-4:30pm
Curriculum Workshop*, July 19-20, 10am-3pm
(*optional for retreat participants)
July
16-20, 2007
Day Road Farms
8989 Day Road East
Bainbridge Island, WA
(click here for directions)
In
parternship and collaboration with:
Trust for Working Landscapes
Bainbridge Island Vineyards
Laughing Crow Farm
Healthier Kids Bainbridge
Bainbridge Historical Society
Bainbridge Island School District
Town & Country Market
Food Muse Inspired Catering
Island Health Foods
and Others
Program
Overview:
What are the possibilities for teaching and learning about food and farming in our classrooms and communities?
How do we work towards an ecology of sustainable schools and communities?
Since Fall 2006, more than 70 local educators and community members have been gathering to engage in a meaningful professional and civic dialogue about food, farming, culture and education. Participants represented fifteen different schools and an equal number of community organizations. These dialogues attracted a wide range of community stakeholders who addressed diversity of perspectives and identified common threads around a number of key issues.
We discovered that working towards the ecology of sustainable schools and communities means finding more authentic and meaningful ways to bridge classroom and communities around:
- K-12 Education
- Community-Based Education
- Farming other Working Landscapes
- Food & Nutrition
- Habitat and Ecology
- Healthy Living
- Sustainable Communities
- History and Heritage
- Local and Global Commons
- Civics Education
These educational ideas and interest generated by these dialogues reinforces the wisdom of John Dewey, that “the school itself shall be made a genuine form of active community life, instead of place set apart in which to learn lessons.” They also echoed the words of Aldo Leopold, “To change ideas about what land is for is to change ideas about what anything is for.” Schools and educators want to find authentic and meaningful ways to strengthen what we already feel responsible for in our teaching and learning: scholarship, stewardship and citizenship.
These dialogues has presented us with a special opportunity to build strong educational relationships between local schools and farms and other working landscapes and nurture best practices and model curricula on a community wide scale.
