CEL | News November-December 2007







		November - December 2007

		Articles Farming the Future, by Kenny Ausubel News CEL Addresses Green Your School Conference Zenobia Barlow to Present at Mayo Clinic Nutrition Program Third Printing of CEL Guide to Creating School Gardens Ordered Zenobia Barlow Attends Sustainability Classes and Farm Assembly in India Third Rethinking School Lunch Seminar Sells Out American Farmland Reprints Thinking Outside the Lunchbox Essay National Farm to School Network Launched Calendar November 14–17: North American Association for Environmental Education 2007 Virginia Beach, Virginia November 24–28: 4th International Conference on Environmental Education Ahmedabad, India November 30: Deadline for Love Your Veggies™ Grant Applications Articles Thinking outside the Lunchbox: Farming the Future, by Kenny Ausubel In this month's essay, Kenny Ausubel, founder and co-executive director of Bioneers, discusses strategies for human adaptation and survival in an era of food insecurity that could result from climate change, topsoil loss, water shortages, overuse of agricultural chemicals, impoverished crop biodiversity, disease, or high oil prices. He argues that future food security will depend on diverse solutions, including education programs that focus on gardening, cooking, and the ecology of food; restoration of community; support for independent farmers; technological innovation; and cultivating a deep connection to land and place. Kenny Ausubel: "The only constant in nature is change, and we're in for big turbulence. Our ability to adapt will be the make-it-or-break-it factor. Evolution's path is littered with extinctions of all those who didn't adapt. In nature the greatest source of resiliency in the face of change is diversity. In other words, hedge your bets. Employ multiple strategies. Rely on diverse sources of subsistence. Create redundancies. Have a backup. Plan B is just the beginning." Read Kenny Ausubel’s essay, Farming the Future > See other articles in Thinking outside the Lunchbox > News CEL Addresses Green Your School Conference Carolie Sly, education program specialist at CEL, facilitated a workshop called Education for Sustainability: A Whole School Approach at the fourth annual Green Your School conference in October. She also facilitated a panel discussion entitled Striving for Ecoliteracy. Teachers, parents, and administrators participated in both sessions, which emphasized a systems approach to creating a sustainable school and showcased learning activities that apply ecological concepts to students' personal lives. Dr. Sly demonstrated how to calculate one's ecological footprint; CEL knows of at least one teacher who attended that session and is now expanding that lesson for her eighth grade class. The conference took place in San Anselmo, California and was cosponsored by the San Domenico School and the Kairos Center, an affiliate of Stepping Stones Project, which is committed to promoting education that fosters sustainable relationships with earth, self, and the community. Visit San Domenico > Kairos Center > Zenobia Barlow to Present at Mayo Clinic Nutrition Program CEL co-founder and executive director Zenobia Barlow is presenting a talk on the CEL program, Rethinking School Lunch, at the 2007 Mayo Clinic Nutrition in Health & Disease conference. The conference, put on by the Mayo School of Continuing Medical Education, educates physicians, dietitians, nurses, pharmacists and other health care professionals in coordinating diet, exercise, and behavior therapy with medications and surgery. The conference will also provide an in-depth overview of the nutrition issues that clinicians encounter in medical settings. The Rethinking School Lunch presentation takes place in San Francisco, CA on November 8. Visit Mayo Clinic Course Offerings > Third Printing of CEL Guide to Creating School Gardens Ordered This October, the California Department of Education (CDE) ordered 10,000 copies of the CEL publication Getting Started: A Guide for Creating School Gardens as Outdoor Classrooms. This order will require a third printing, bringing the total number of copies to 35,000. The book was designed and published by the Center in collaboration with Life Lab Science Program, who wrote the manuscript. Getting Started includes instructions for selecting, preparing, and maintaining sites, as well as for connecting gardens to the classroom. Getting Started is available at no cost to California teachers as part of the CDE's school garden resource packet from the Garden in Every School program. CEL provides free copies to teachers in other states within the US. Request Copies of Getting Started > Visit California School Garden Network > Zenobia Barlow Attends Sustainability Classes and Farm Assembly in India CEL co-founder and executive director Zenobia Barlow participated in a class, Food Safety and Food Security on October 3-10, taught by Dr. Vandana Shiva at Bija Vidyapeeth, the International College for Sustainable Living. Bija Vidyapeeth is located at at the Navdanya Trust's organic farm, Ramgarh, Dehra Dun, India. While there, she also attended Vasundhara, the 7th annual Indian Organic Farmers’ & Seed Keeper’s Gathering. This was the seventh annual gathering, and was also held at Ramgarh, on October 9 and 10. Visit Navdanya > Third Rethinking School Lunch Seminar Sells Out The Center's third Rethinking School Lunch seminar, held at CEL's office in Berkeley, included participants from ten states and four countries representing over 350,000 students. Janet Brown, Ann M. Evans, and a line-up of CEL educators and practitioners in school food service and curriculum led the two-day exploration of ways to place nutritious meals at the center of an integrated curriculum. Participants described the seminar as "exciting and powerful," "profoundly moving," and "very supportive." American Farmland Reprints Thinking outside the Lunchbox Essay American Farmland, the quarterly publication of the American Farmland Trust, has reprinted Gary Paul Nabhan’s essay “Long Before the First Thanksgiving” in its fall 2007 issue. The essay, written for CEL’s Thinking outside the Lunchbox series, recounts the involvement of River Pima elders in teaching elementary school students on the Gila River Indian Reservation about healthy foodways. American Farmland Trust has worked since 1980 to educate the public and lawmakers in order stop the loss of productive farmland and to promote farming practices that lead to a healthy environment. Visit American Farmland Trust > Read Gary Nabhan’s essay > National Farm to School Network Launched The National Farm to School Network, coordinated by the Center for Food & Justice at Occidental College and the Community Food Security Coalition, with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, was officially launched in 2007. In October the organization inaugurated a monthly e-newsletter, Farm to School Routes, which will highlight policies, news, publications, and events, with a featured region and profile each month. A redesigned Farm to School Online website contains extensive content for farmers, teachers, parents, and food service directors who are changing the way the nation’s schoolchildren eat. The site also features much user-generated content, including discussion forums and event announcements. Among new publications profiled on the website is A Growing Movement: A Decade of Farm to School in California, by Anupama Joshi and Moira Beery, which references some of the work of CEL and lists several CEL publications and web pages as resources. Visit Farm to School Online > Farm to School Routes > Calendar November 14–17: North American Association for Environmental Education 2007 Virginia Beach, Virginia The theme of this year’s NAAEE conference is "Explore New Horizons for Environmental Education." Visit NAAEE Conference > November 24–28: 4th International Conference on Environmental Education Ahmedabad, India The conference is sponsored by the Ministry of Human Development and the Ministry of Environment and Forests of India, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the United Nations Environment Programme, and hosted by the Centre for Environment Education in Ahmedabad. Themes for the conference have been developed according to the perspectives of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development and will emphasize possibilities for partnership between the fields of environmental education and education for sustainable development. Visit International Conference on Environmental Education > November 30: Deadline for Love Your Veggies™ Grant Applications The makers of Hidden Valley ranch dressings, in partnership with the School Nutrition Association and its foundation and the Produce for Better Health Foundation, are awarding up to 51 $10,000 grants to support elementary school programs that increase student access to, and consumption of, fresh vegetables and fruits during school meals. One grant will be awarded in each state with a qualifying applicant, as well as one grant in Oakland, California, Hidden Valley’s hometown. Visit Love Your Veggies Grants >
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