CEL | News







		October 2007

		Articles Feeding Our Kids the Right Food…and Inspiring Them to Eat It, by Pamela Koch News CEL Professional Development Institutes Set for Summer 2008 Center Hosts Farm to School Strategies Workshop Support Sought for Declaration on School Lunch, Academics, and Health New Book by Fritjof Capra on Leonardo Set for Release Small Planet Media Publishes New Frances Moore Lappé Book Calendar October 15–19 National School Lunch Week Across the US October 19-21: Bioneers Conference San Rafael, California October 24: Earth Island Institute 25th Anniversary and Brower Youth San Francisco, California Articles Thinking outside the Lunchbox: Feeding Our Kids the Right Food…and Inspiring Them to Eat It, by Pamela Koch In this newsletter (see story below), the Center announces two professional development institutes based on CEL's Rethinking School Lunch planning framework and the Linking Food and the Environment (LiFE) curriculum developed by Teachers College Columbia University. In this month's essay, Pamela Koch, the primary author of the LiFE series, discusses research indicating that children are most willing to eat new healthy foods (and have the largest knowledge gains) when schools combine food service changes with classroom lessons, especially lessons featuring hands-on experience cooking and eating healthy foods. Pam Koch: "The students who had only the cafeteria changes without curriculum in the classroom did not increase the amount of the targeted foods they ate; at the end of the program, they threw away most of the targeted foods, as they had at the beginning. Simply having the foods in the cafeteria…was not enough to inspire the kids to eat the new foods….But the students who received Cookshop…significantly increased their intake of the targeted foods. [They also] had the greatest knowledge gains [and] the greatest increased preferences for whole, plant foods." Read Pamela Koch's essay, Feeding Our Kids the Right Food…and Inspiring Them to Eat It > See other articles in Thinking outside the Lunchbox > News CEL Professional Development Institutes Set for Summer 2008 The Center for Ecoliteracy and Teachers College Columbia University (TC) announce two five-day professional development institutes to be offered in 2008, June 23-27 in Berkeley, California and August 9-13 in New York City. The institutes are designed to support teams from schools and districts that want to create learning connections between the school food environment and curriculum in the classroom. The institutes are part of the CEL–TC joint project, Rethinking Food, Health and the Environment: Making Learning Connections, supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The institutes are grounded in CEL's Rethinking School Lunch planning framework and in the Linking Food and the Environment (LiFE) Curriculum Series for science and nutrition education. Developed by Teachers College, LiFE features inquiry-based activities that integrate the study of food, food systems, and environmental and personal health. Teams participating in the institutes will develop specific implementation plans for their schools or districts, applying the RSL planning framework and the LiFE curriculum. The institutes will include seminars on the latest research in nutrition and sustainable education, how-to sessions with leading practitioners, field trips to regional farms and schools engaged in rethinking school food, and opportunities to share experiences and to model the practices of a learning community. Apply online Rethinking Food, Health, and the Environment PD Institute > Center Hosts Farm-to-School Strategies Workshop In September CEL hosted "Growing a Movement with Farm to School Champions," a workshop to exchange strategies for advancing farm-to-school opportunities in California. The workshop was sponsored by the Center for Food and Justice and the California Farm to School Taskforce and cosponsored by CEL and the Network for a Healthy California at the California Department of Public Health. Visit Center for Food and Justice > California Farm to School Taskforce > Network for a Healthy California > Support Sought for Declaration on School Lunch, Academics, and Health Last spring, the Center for Ecoliteracy, Mills College, and the UC Davis Center for Integrative Nutrition Environments in School Communities convened a hundred national, state, and local leaders in education, health, agriculture, and public policy to address linkages between school lunch, children's health, and academic performance. Participants have since completed drafting "A Declaration on Student Health, Scholastic Achievement, and School Lunch," calling for and committing themselves to a series of reforms in school lunch policy and funding, increased attention to health and nutrition, and integration of school gardens, cafeterias, and curriculum. The final draft may be read on the CEL website, signed on behalf of all the signatories by Zenobia Barlow of the Center for Ecoliteracy, Marilyn Briggs of the Center for Integrative Nutrition Environments in School Communities, and Delaine Eastin of Mills College. People and organizations wishing to add their support or learn about follow-up should email Anna Jones, administrative assistant at the Center for Integrative Nutrition Environments: anajones@davis.edu Download A Declaration on Student Health, Scholastic Achievement, and School Lunch > New Book by Fritjof Capra on Leonardo Set for Release CEL founding director Fritjof Capra’s new book, The Science of Leonardo: Inside the Great Mind of the Genius of the Renaissance (2007; Doubleday), is scheduled for release October 31. The Science of Leonardo re-examines Leonardo's scientific legacy in the light of its relationship to his other creative work. Based on over 10,000 drawings and more than 6,000 pages of text from Leonardo's notebooks, The Science of Leonardo argues that, without a classical education, Leonardo was free to develop his own holistic approach to science. His science and art cannot be separated, says Capra, and together constitute an organic approach — a science of wholeness, movement, and transformation radically different from the mechanistic science of Galileo, Descartes, and Newton and more akin to twenty-first century science. Visit Fritjof Capra: The Science of Leonardo > Doubleday: The Science of Leonardo > Book tour schedule > Small Planet Media Publishes New Frances Moore Lappé Book Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity, and Courage in a World Gone Mad is Frances Moore Lappé's sixteenth book, the first offering of Small Planet Media, the new publishing arm of her Small Planet Institute. The book, she says, is about identifying and overcoming "the killer ideas that trap us." She contrasts a "thin democracy" worldview, which reinforces a "spiral of powerlessness," with "living democracy," which nurtures a "spiral of empowerment." Inspiring examples reinforce her hopeful message that "We no longer have to settle for grasping at straws — wild acts of protest, or tearful acts of charity, or any other short-term, feel-less-bad steps. We become open to the possibilities of real change." Visit Getting a Grip website > Videos on Getting a Grip themes > Book tour schedule > Calendar October 15–19 National School Lunch Week Across the US National School Lunch Week was established in 1963 by presidential proclamation to help raise awareness and support for the roles that nutrition education and the National School Lunch Program play in the lives of children. The School Nutrition Association website has a "Tools You Can Use" page, including National School Lunch Week activities and sample proclamations to share with local officials. Visit US Department of Agriculture: National School Lunch Week > Tools You Can Use > October 19-21: Bioneers Conference San Rafael, California Bioneers annually attracts 3,000 visionaries, activists, and designers who are applying practical environmental solutions and innovative social strategies on behalf of the Earth and human communities. CEL program officer Janet Brown will host Bioneers youth at a preconference food and farming session at her farm. Senior editor Michael K. Stone will moderate a conference panel on "Education for a Sustainable World." Visit Bioneers Conference > October 24: Earth Island Institute 25th Anniversary and Brower Youth Awards San Francisco, California The 2007 Brower Youth Awards will be presented October 24 at a ceremony celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of David Brower's founding of Earth Island Institute. The awards recognize six young people for their outstanding activism and achievements in environmental and social justice advocacy. Winners receive $3,000 cash awards and are invited to use Earth Island Institute as a resource for networking, mentoring, and fiscal sponsorship of their projects. Visit Brower Youth Awards > 2008 Award Application >
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