By Phoebe Neidl
and Harold Egeln
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

BROOKLYN — Gone are the days of mystery meat lunches. School cafeterias are on their way to getting healthier, fresher and more nutritious due to a growing movement that is uprooting the way school children eat.

The campaign includes schools where students grow their own edible gardens and the results end up on their school cafeteria menu. The trend extends from the White House lawn to Brooklyn schoolhouse gardens, as the borough takes the green lead in the city.

Brooklyn’s enthusiasm for the healthy lunch movement caught the attention of Alice Waters, the renowned chef and organic food activist behind the Edible Schoolyard program, which first began in San Francisco in 1995. P.S. 216, a pre-K-through-fifth grade school in Gravesend, will soon become the first New York City affiliate of the Edible Schoolyard program. The students will plant, harvest, prepare food and eat together, which will tie into a comprehensive interdisciplinary curriculum involving science, math, social studies and the arts.

Part of what is now an asphalt-covered yard at the school will be converted into a quarter-acre organic farm, a kitchen classroom, and a mobile, four-season greenhouse.

They are raising funds for construction, which will hopefully start in June of 2010, says Erica Lowry, strategic director for Edible Schoolyard. They’ve identified donors and are working with the School Construction Authority.

Edible Schoolyard CEO John Lyons had worked with P.S. 216 through another program, PENCIL, and knew the school had a “fantastic community and a fantastic principal,� as well as a great space for it — a 50,000-square-foot lot, says Lowry.

Also, the school is in Community District 15, which has the third lowest percentage of green space in Brooklyn, Lowry said. And as a Title 1 school, all of the students qualify for free lunches.

“It’s hands-on, inquiry based learning. It’s more meaningful than what they’re reading in a book,� she says. “To have a garden on site the children can visit, you can really tie in what they’re studying, even history and literature ... and it’s particularly powerful to have a tie-in with the parents and the community. You can invite chefs and family members and show off what you can do with a garden.�

Though Brooklyn is attracting cutting edge national programs, it’s also home to one of the oldest. Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) realized the importance of educating children in gardening long ago. They started the Children’s Garden program in 1914, which allowed children to tend their own individual garden plots in a time when Brooklyn’s green spaces were becoming few and far between. BBG also provides curriculum to local, Title 1 schools through their Project Green Reach.

“We’ve seen an increased interest in creating school gardens,� says Sharon Myrie, VP of education at BBG. “There has been a much greater emphasis and focus on growing food locally and encouraging youth to eat healthier food and vegetables. It certainly has been shown that children are more inclined to eat food, especially vegetables, that they grow themselves. There is a lot of pride that goes into growing their own produce.�

© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2009 All materials posted on BrooklynEagle.com are protected by United States copyright law. Just a reminder, though -- It’s not considered polite to paste the entire story on your blog. Most blogs post a summary or the first paragraph,( 40 words) then post a link to the rest of the story. That helps increase click-throughs for everyone, and minimizes copyright issues. So please keep posting, but not the entire article. arturc at att.net