High Tech Elementary School has a Learning Garden provided by The Kitchen Community and yesterday was planting day. Josh and Laura, from The Kitchen Community, taught kids to plant rainbow chard, potatoes and other herbs. While planting Josh and Laura would explain to the kid the process of planting a garden and what the kids can expect from all of their work.
Josh’s favorite part of the job, “watching the kids get extraordinarily excited about vegetables. For some it is the first time in a garden and finding out that vegetables don’t just come from a store but from the ground is rewarding.”
The kids enjoyed getting their hands dirty. While planting seeds they would comment on what they looked like, and apparently some looked just like brains.
The Kitchen Community builds Learning Gardens in schools around the country. The Learning Gardens are engaging outdoor classrooms that connect kids to real food, increase academic achievement, and drive community engagement. The gardens a purposefully shaped in u-patterns so that teachers can stand on one side and the kids on the other.
The Kitchen Community CEO and co-founder Kimbal Musk is an entrepreneur, restaurateur, and the father of three children who have always had access to a school garden. He’s been involved with the school garden movement for over a decade and has seen firsthand the way school gardens can help kids increase their preference for nutritious foods, develop healthier responses to stress, and improve their academic performance.
The Kitchen Community is currently in 6 regions – Colorado, Los Angeles, Memphis, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh with approximately 400 Learning Gardens, 55 of those are in Colorado. Their goal is to reach 10 total regions, 1,000 Learning Gardens by 2020.
