Rationale
Why is food preservation important to students at Pittsburgh Miller? It promotes healthy eating habits and physical activity. Daily, students will come to school with a supply of junk food, i.e. hot Cheetos and soda pop bought from the corner convenient store. America has promoted healthy eating and exercise over the last eight years with First Lady, Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” program. To help promote and teach this program, our school garden has taken on a new face in the school community over the last four years. Students are celebrating growing vegetables from seed to harvest. Students are finding the value and importance of physical activity. They find great pleasure being outside and working together in a cooperative physical environment. In the Life Science curriculum, students learn about ecosystems. The school garden is a place for my students to understand and care for an ecosystem in which they live in. They see their impact on their community by composting and mulching, by using rainwater to water plants, by maintaining weed and pest control. These processes and practices encourage an environmental ethic that will guide Miller students toward becoming environmental stewards of the Hill community. They take great pride in working together to sow, grow, care, and maintain their garden every year. The young garden caretakers are saddened that the bounty of their harvest lasts for a short time. During the fall and winter months, the children will learn processes and applications that will preserve fresh foods from the garden. Preservation of their harvest will ensure the choice and likelihood that they will enjoy the produce planted. Therefore, food preservation will be infused into the Life Sciences in grades 2 and 3..
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