Intergenerational Education for Sustainable Agriculture

Intergenerational Education for Sustainable Agriculture

Summary

Objectives
1) Introduce the concepts of sustainable agriculture and its impacts on our environment, economy and community to students and teachers in our public school systems by establishing on-site educational gardens at pilot schools and in community gardens in six states.
2) Integrate local family farmers —especially limited resource farmers —and other farming professionals into educational activities at these pilot schools through the development of hands-on curricula for science, mathematics, literacy, economics, social skills, history and art based on sustainable agriculture activities. These farmers and professionals will be introduced to students as role models for viable career paths and occupational choices.
3) Create a regional network, which could expand to a national network, that promotes sustainable agriculture education for young people by establishing linkages between the participants so they can communicate with and learn from each other.
4) Disseminate program results to other educational professionals and agricultural information providers so that successful programs can be adapted in other school systems and educational settings.

Approach
To date, 11 programs in seven states — Dunbar Garden Project, 5 schools in the Roots and Shoots Project, Sustainable Food Center, Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, Newport News Boys and Girls Club, Mark Twain School, and the Beat Four Cooperative — have established on-site gardens and educational activities that incorporate aspects of sustainable agriculture.

We have facilitated extensive networking among other sustainable agriculture youth education projects from both within the Southern region and beyond to link programs and share information. Savanah Williams has contacted 13 new organizations and schools in the past year, and expanded our network to include programs that focus on livestock management as well as gardening and landscaping.

We established communication and collaboration among groups through meetings, conference calls, sharing of resources, and networking at the annual Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Youth Conference. Farmers, teachers, and youth from nine of the organizations attended the Southern SAWG Youth conference in January 2000 to network with each other, participate in model educational activities, and share curricula ideas.

Work left to be done includes: 1) further identification of appropriate curricula custom fit to each site, and development of new curricula to fill gaps, 2) participation in conference activities at the 2001 Southern SAWG Youth conference, 3) assessing the lessons learned and gathering the materials generated from each pilot site to distribute to others who are interested, 4) developing appropriate channels (such as a website, e-mail network, newsletter, and other written materials) for disseminating and sharing information, and 5) planning as a group to develop the regional network in ways that will lead to self-sufficiency and long-term sustainability for the individual programs.

By offering more educational opportunities in the principles and practices of sustainable agriculture to youth and by exposing young people to farmers using sustainable practices, we will increase the understanding and support for sustainable agriculture among the general population. In addition, these educational programs should interest more young people into pursuing an occupation in the field of sustainable agriculture. The more good minds that we have in our field, the better we will be able to solve problems for all family farmers.

Collaborators: