“Nono, no. I’m driving the car and holding the broccoli so that I can eat it when I need more energy, and then see, there’s the transporters so that I can go into the zone where I pick up as much broccoli as I can so then it just appears when I need more because racing is hard and you need a lot of energy and broccoli is good at giving you energy and there’s the swimming pool in the middle of the racetrack. And did you know that your name is my name but mine’s in French?”

It’s been a long time since I’ve been in third grade. In retrospect, it was silly of me to assume that the person-sized broccoli stalk with a face, sitting in the driver’s seat, was driving the car. As Andre dutifully pointed out moments later, broccoli don’t even have thumbs. Too true, Andre. Too true. Thankfully, he, a member of Ms. Harris’s third grade class at the Center City Public Charter School in Trinidad, didn’t make me feel too stupid at my outlandish suggestion. It was, after all, our first day in the classroom, and everybody wants to make friends on the first day.

I’m the new guy at the Washington Youth Garden, an educational nonprofit based out of the National Arboretum (one of the true jewels of the nations capital), which has been inspiring children and families to explore their relationships with food and nature for way longer than urban gardening has been cool. Established in 1971, the WYG manages a one-acre vegetable garden at the arboretum and runs a variety of interdisciplinary, hands-on educational programming.

Specifically, I am working with the Garden Science program, which includes an 8-week environmental science and nutrition curriculum in six 2^nd and 3^rd grade  D.C. elementary school classrooms.* The program culminates in a trip to our garden at the Arboretum, where the students finally get to let eight weeks worth of suppressed energy and excitement come flooding out. They rampage around the garden, playing with dirt, picking up bugs, and of course, productively observing and working in the garden.

There are a great many reasons why the Garden Science program is a wonderful service to the greater community and an integral asset to the local/sustainable/urban/whatever you want to call it movement that is currently whipping winds of progress around the DC area. Environmental education. Informal learning. Inspiring hope. Nutrition education. Respectfully informing children that neither pizza nor shrimp are vegetables. Smiling. Empowering children. Planting seeds. The list goes on. Embedded among the myriad justifications of Garden Science is the simple fact that the WYG is doing good work for good reasons, and have been doing so for nearly 40 years. Shazam.

Personally, I am excited to have the chance to be working with kids in a gardensciencey-infused atmosphere. To see the smiles that light up their faces at the mention of growing seeds and visiting our garden. To suppress my smiles when their faces scrunch and distort with the desperate straight-armed fingerwiggle maneuver, so desperate to provide answers to our questions. To see the potential in each and every child in the classroom. To get to know the students, and give them something to believe in.

Right, so why do you care what I have to say? I’m getting there.

Relatively speaking, I’m a rookie in this game. For me, youth garden/science education is the latest stop on a ‘tour,’ of sorts, of work around the theme of food and agriculture. So, as I spend time in the classroom, getting to know the kids and re-assimilating to the 3^rd grade wavelength, I’ll make my best attempt to exhibit one of the fundamental pillars of successful classroom behavior: sharing.

Throughout my stint at the WYG, I will be writing weekly(ish) updates on the progress, content, and any or all funny, heart wrenching, politically or socially applicable, fun, thought provoking, visually appealing and/or silly bouts of creativity–like Eric’s ApplejuicePiemachine, a complex contraption involving quantum physics and elaborate engineering that consists of an apple-shaped central chamber that can dispense apple cinnamon, apple pies, apple cider, apple juice, apple trees, and of course, apples, at one’s convenience…but I digress–that come from our regular classroom visits. I’d like to think of this as a kind of window through which one can get an insider’s view of the Garden Science project. I hereby invite you to join in on the fun.

If you have any questions, comments, general concerns, or inquiries into the feasibility of re-creating the ApplejuicePiemachine for commercial purposes, you can contact me at aplotsky@washingtonyouthgarden.org

*The Garden Science program serves two classes in each of the following schools:

Imagine Hope Community Charter School

Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School

Center City Public Charter School, Trinidad Campus

Title: Rooting DC Fundraiser Happy Hour
Location: Commonwealth Gastropub
Link out: Click here
Description: Come on out to a fundraiser happy hour for Rooting DC\’s 2010 annual forum! Join us at Commonwealth Gastropub – 1400 Irving St NW, Washington, DC. (near the Columbia Heights metro) – from 5 PM to 8 PM on Tuesday, February 2, 2010 for drinks and food for a good cause.
Date: 2010-01-31

DC’s Field to Fork Network refers to the dozens of organizations working in Washington, DC to foster regional change in how we approach our food.  Members of the Network represent urban gardeners, farmers’ markets, distribution co-operatives, food banks, local government agencies, academic institutions, nutrition educators, community organizers, and cooks – our work encompasses everything between a gardener’s or farmer’s field and your fork!

Organization as a Network will strengthen the linkages between community gardening, food preparation, and nutritional outreach, resulting in a “field to fork” network that will:

• encourage the use of underutilized green space within the District for agriculture,
• support diversity, abundance, affordability thus, consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables,
• expand health and economic benefits by increasing access to fresh produce, and
• engage participants and volunteers in outreach and educational opportunities throughout the year.

2010 marks the third year that many of these organizations have collaborated to put on Rooting DC, an annual day-long forum for urban gardeners.  Throughout the year, Rooting DC coordinators have written monthly email newsletters outlining upcoming events, volunteer opportunities, and workshops put on by the partners.  Now in creation of the Field to Fork Network website, this information will be easily organized and accessible on-demand at www.fieldtoforknetwork.org!

Use this website to gather resources for gardeners, find upcoming volunteer opportunities in urban ag projects or local food pantries, learn about upcoming workshops, find info on bringing a wider of diversity of crops to your gardening community, get recipes for local seasonal produce, or just stay up to date on DC’s field to fork news.  We hope you will find this website a valuable resource as we grow over the course of the next few months.  Please feel free to make suggestions for what additional information or resources ought to be included, by emailing us at DCFieldtoFork@gmail.com

Rooting DC and the Field to Fork Network are organized by America the Beautiful Fund.

A HUGE THANK YOU to Don Conley of studiographx and to Robert Dubois for their pro bono logo design of the Field to Fork logo and the Rooting DC logo, respectively!