Garden Classrooms

Wings Park Elementary Garden

 Wings Park Elementary installed several vegetables raised beds the Summer of 2012.  Students in grades 2-5 plant, tend, and harvest these vegetables.  Produce is used in the annual Oelwein Harvest Fest.

Oelwein High School High Tunnel

 The Oelwein High School high tunnel is run by the local FFA Chapter.  Produce from the high tunnel is sold to the school cafeteria and used at Oelwein's annuual Harvest Fest.

Valley Elementary School Garden

 The Valley Elementary School gardens were created to both beautify the campus and provide learning opportunities for all students.  All students, preschool-5th grade participate in the planting, cultivation, and harvesting of the gardens.  There is one small, more decorative bed located in front of the school, close to where parents drop their kids off, and another larger bed behind the school nestled amongst the playground.  During the growing season, kids love to pick cherry tomatoes at recess!

Postville Community Garden

 The Postville Community Garden is a beautiful and sprawling space dedicated to bring people from diverse backgrounds together to grow their own food.  About a third of the garden is grown for and by students from Postville Community School District.  During the growing season, elementary students gather on a weekly basis to care for the garden, learn about growing practices, and prepare a healthy snack.  All food produced by the garden is either sent home with the students who grow it, or sent to the school cafeteria.

Madison Farm to Fork Farm to School Program

This is a service site with the national program FoodCorps.

The Farm to School program serves students in the Ennis School District. Students engage in regular classes in the newly built Ennis School Garden, receive nutrition education lessons, take field trips to local farms and ranches, participate in Good Thymes Camp (a summer day camp with a focus on sustainable agriculture & natural resource conservation), and much more! The Farm to School program is also working with the Ennis School Lunch program to source and serve more fresh, local foods in the lunchroom. 

 

Luther College Gardens and Farms

 Luther College is proud to produce local foods in several on- and off-campus locations. Student workers tend to our production gardens over the summer. We also have two on-campus edible landscapes, a "Walk Around the World" diversity garden and an Edible Landscape near Valders Hall of Science. We also host several community garden plots near our production gardens and have residence hall gardens at both Norby House and the Sustainability House.

 

We have donated produce to the Food Pantry and also host on-campus Salad Bowl Days and produce giveaways.

St. Joseph Community School Garden

This fall was our second year of our garden program. Our garden reaches K-8 every student in multiple ways. 5th and 6th grade students help with the planting and harvesting, and all students use produce in cooking lessons, eat produce in school lunches and classroom snacks, and use the garden in class curriculum. Family volunteers help with summer maintenance. We also donate excess produce to our local food pantry. We had a large plot at our local hospital gardens and four new raised beds. This spring, we hope to add additional raised beds and are looking into a hoop house.

 

New Hampton High School FFA Greenhouse

 The New Hampton High School FFA Chapter recently installed a greenhouse project including a greenhouse structure with an aquaponics station for starting seeds and a hoop house for extending the growing season of crops. The greenhouse is managed by the FFA and Ag. classes. Produce is used in FACS classes and in the school cafeteria.

 

Through the Northeast Iowa Food & Fitness Initiative, New Hampton has been home to an AmeriCorps/FoodCorps member since the 2011-2012 school year.

Turkey Valley Community School District

Turkey Valley has had a school garden for several years. It is primarily cared for by the 4th grade classroom, with help from the High School environmental science classes. All students K-12 enjoy garden produce in our cafeteria.

Through the Northeast Iowa Food & Fitness Initiative, Turkey Valley has been home to a FoodCorps service member since the 2011-2012 school year.

Con Sabor

The program presents Cuban recipes, using local products. It shows traditional and current Cuban cuisine, with information about the healthy cook. We present many materials related with botanical and cultural characteristics of many edible plants, in order to show the rich biodiversity of them. There are some messages about the relation between food production and environment. It has a deep educational purpose.

I have published 6 cookbooks and several healthy food papers, such as:

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