Food for Thought – Episode 4: Teaching Diversity Appreciation Via Permaculture

In our fourth episode of Food for Thought, Anne discusses how project-based instruction using companion planting and other polyculture techniques illustrate how diversity is a natural phenomenon that can be used to maximize the benefits for all involved. It can serve as a neutral topic of instruction illustrating that understanding how things naturally work best together produces superior results than …

Food for Thought – Episode 3: Teaching How Systems Work Through Gardening

In our 3rd episode of Food for Thought, our director and creator of the Learn & Grow Educational Series discusses how to use gardening to teach kids about systems, how they work, and how they interact with each other to create larger systems. References: California State Academic Standards – https://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/ Definition of “gestalt” – https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gestalt Bronfenbrenner’s Socio-Ecological Model of Human …

Food for Thought – Episode 1: Food Security During Times of Crisis

This is Episode 1 of our Vlog, Food for Thought. This episode is titled, “Food Security During Times of Crisis.” This video discusses the use of an old urban gardening technique, self-watering containers made from 5-gallon buckets, as a means of ensuring food security for individuals, families, and communities regardless of the economy and condition of the commercialized food supply. …

The Value of Patience

artichokes growing in a self-watering container in the Learn & Grow test garden

In our ever-increasingly rapid-paced world, we have become accustomed to real-time results to many of our efforts and inquiries, which amounts to instant gratification. Surrounded by these experiences, it is easy for developing young children who are still processing the world according to intuition rather than logic to misperceive this constant stream of instant gratification as the only kind of …