The kids will use their garden's produce to make meals, learn about nutrition with lessons from the university's extension service, develop a way to sell some of the produce at the local farmer's market, and donate vegetables to the local food bank. Carrots, radishes, spinach . . . The Drinkwater Elementary School has donated the produce from its garden since it began in 1998. The garden project is school run and student centered. Last year over 500 pounds of the garden's produce was donated to a local food pantry.
Students participate in weekly nutrition classes and hunger awareness curriculum lessons.
The kids decide to either donate the vegetables, fruits, and flowers they've grown to the local food pantry or display them at the local county fair. Students devise organic methods of dealing with weeds and pests and practice different methods of food preparation and safety. In one lesson, a variety of vegetables and fruits were chopped, sliced, diced, and dehydrated. The students then made soup from the dehydrated vegetables.