Departments of Agriculture and Education, The Rodale Institute is promoting the contest to grades K through 12 throughout the state. To ensure that every school is eligible to enter the contest, gardens entered can be tended by a single classroom, multiple classrooms, individual grades or by the whole school. Even container gardens are included. What is even more exciting is that these children are the future consumers and producers of organic food. Getting them to understand the connection between soil, food and health by tending their own gardens is a fun, learning experience that is also going to have a very positive impact on the future of organic agriculture in Pennsylvania and the rest of the country.
Many schools already have well-established organic gardens.
Her school's garden is tended by 120 pairs of children in spring and fall programs, and has made the transition from conventional gardening to fully organic over a period of four years. They learn about how their environment works, they get to make decisions about what to grow and when to plant and harvest, and they learn how to take responsibility. The Bronze category of the contest encourages entries from schools with conventionally grown gardens that intend to become organic in the future. The panel of judges that will select winners by reviewing the posters and narratives submitted by each school includes The Pennsylvania Department of Education, The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and Family Fun magazine. First prize winning schools in each category will receive an invitation for one teacher and three students to attend The Rodale Institute Fund-Raising Dinner to collect their awards, with travel arrangements and a one night stay compliments of the Department of Education.