Articles
A School in Every Garden, by A.G. Kawamura

The Designer's Challenge, by David W. Orr

Calendar
September 14-18: Teach-In: "Confronting the Triple Crisis: Climate Change, Peak Oil, and Global Resource Depletion"
Washington, DC

October 19-21: Bioneers Conference
San Rafael, California

November 6-7: CEL Seminar: Rethinking School Lunch
Berkeley, California

Articles

Thinking outside the Lunchbox:
A School in Every Garden, by A.G. Kawamura

This month's essay, by secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture secretary A.G. Kawamura, presents the vision of a partnership among agriculture, nutrition, and education in which each takes full advantage of each other's resources. They merge in lessons learned in school gardens, where children gain a better understanding of how closely linked humans are to our food supply and to nature. School gardens, says Kawamura, can become the cornerstone of a new awareness for our society of the importance of nutritional abundance, "the highest, most achievable goal we can work toward."

A.G. Kawamura: "A garden teaches a child about the delicate balance between living and surviving through a hands-on relationship with another living organism. It teaches the child about the consequences of negligence. It provides a living laboratory where life's lessons are experienced and learned. It is a step toward understanding an educational process that most of the agrarian world practices on a daily basis. The forgotten lessons that a garden provides can set the stage for new paradigms in teaching, school lunch programs, community food security outreach, agricultural literacy, and community service learning."

Read A.G. Kawamura's essay, A School in Every Garden >
See other articles in Thinking outside the Lunchbox >

New Content on the CEL Website:
The Designer's Choice, by David W. Orr

CEL board member David Orr delivered this commencement address in May to the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. He enlarges the definition of "design" and speaks of the "Great Work" for which educators must prepare this generation of students: to act as trustees obligated to pass on the best of civilization and the ecological requisites on which it depends — including a stable climate and biological diversity — to future generations. No previous generation, he says, "ever had a greater challenge and none more reason to rise to greatness."

David W. Orr: "Design in its largest sense has to do with how we provision ourselves with food, energy, materials, shelter, livelihood, transport, water, and waste cycling. It is the calibration of human intentions with how the world works as a physical system and the awareness of how the world works to inform our intentions. And good design at all times joins our five senses (and perhaps others that we suspect) with the human fabricated world. When designers get it right, they create in ways that reinforce our common humanity at the deepest level."

Read David Orr's essay, The Designer's Choice >
See other CEL and online publications >

News

CEL Presents to Kellogg Fellows Leadership Alliance
Center executive director Zenobia Barlow and program officer for food systems Janet Brown presented on Rethinking School Lunch in July at Making the Grade in School Nutrition, a meeting convened to discuss a new K–12 school nutrition initiative of the Kellogg Fellows Leadership Alliance. A number of former Kellogg Fellows now serve in strategic leadership positions in state or school district administrations or nutrition services. The Making the Grade in School Nutrition initiative is intended to assist participating school districts to improve nutrition, reduce obesity, increase sourcing of local foods, and educate students about healthy food choices.
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Kellogg Fellows Leadership Alliance >

Thinking Outside the Lunchbox Essay Wins National Award
"Sodas in Schools: A Sticky Situation," by Melinda Hemmelgarn, a CEL Thinking outside the Lunchbox essay, was awarded first place for the state of Missouri and third place nationally in the Writing for the Web category of the 2007 communications contest of the National Federation of Press Women (NFPW). Melinda will be honored at the NFPW's annual meeting, September 19–22 in Richmond, Virginia.
Read
Sodas in Schools: A Sticky Situation >
Visit
National Federation of Press Women >

Encyclopedia of Earth Debuts
The Encyclopedia of Earth, a new electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society went online this summer, with the goal of becoming "the largest reliable information resource on the environment in history." The Encyclopedia is a fully searchable collection of articles written in nontechnical language by scholars, professionals, educators, and experts who collaborate and review each other's work. Boston University professor Cutler J. Cleveland is editor-in-chief. Institutional contributors include the National Council for Science and the Environment and the Department of Geography and Environment and the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Boston University. CEL trustee David W. Orr serves on the Encyclopedia's International Advisory Board.
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The Encyclopedia of Earth >

Sustainability Institute Launches New Quarterly Letter
The Sustainability Institute (SI) has produced the first issue of a new quarterly publication, the SI Letter. SI Letter will be in the spirit of Dear Folks, an informal letter started by SI's founder, Donella Meadows. The quarterly will cover the SI's work helping to understand and restructure complex systems and shift mindsets in order to move human society toward sustainability. As well as covering broad sustainability issues and lessons learned from SI projects, the letter is intended to weave together the personal and professional aspects of influencing systems change while living sustainably.
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Sustainability Institute >

Buckminster Fuller Institute Announces $100,000 Design Challenge
The Buckminster Fuller Institute will award a $100,000 prize annually to support "the development and implementation of a solution with significant potential to solve the world's most pressing problems in the shortest possible time while enhancing the Earth's ecological integrity." The first prize will be conferred in June 2008, to coincide with the opening at the Whitney Museum of American Art of the first major retrospective exhibition of Buckminster Fuller's work in the US. Entries will be accepted September 4–October 30.
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Buckminster Fuller Challenge >

September 14-16: Teach-In: "Confronting the Triple Crisis: Climate Change, Peak Oil, and Global Resource Depletion"
Washington, DC
The International Forum on Globalization, the Institute for Policy Studies, and the Global Project on Economic Transitions are cosponsoring this teach-in, subtitled "The Way Forward: Toward New Economies of Sustainability, Equity, Sufficiency and Peace ('Less and Local')." Confirmed speakers for the event, to be held at George Washington University, include Maude Barlow, Tony Clarke, Randy Hayes, Richard Heinberg, Wes Jackson, Martin Khor, Frances Moore Lappé, Jerry Mander, and Vandana Shiva.
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International Forum on Globalization >

October 19-21: Bioneers Conference
San Rafael, California
The Bioneers conference is one of the world's largest annual gatherings of visionaries and activists applying practical environmental solutions and innovative social strategies to restore the Earth and communities. CEL senior editor Michael K. Stone will moderate a panel on "Education for a Sustainable World" at this year's conference.
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Bioneers Conference >

November 6-7: CEL Seminar: Rethinking School Lunch
Berkeley, California
This two-day seminar, based on CEL's Rethinking School Lunch framework, addresses concepts and solutions for food service reinvention and curriculum innovation with some of the most forward-thinking and successful leaders in the field. Some comments from participants in previous seminars: “"Outstanding”; “The panel of speakers was beyond my wildest dreams”; "I'm leaving so much more optimistic than I have felt for a long time. I am energized and ready to run!" All spaces have filled in advance for previous offerings; we recommend registering early.
Read more >
Apply online >

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