Edible NOLA

Ten years strong at the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, California, Alice Waters's Edible Schoolyard is sprouting new growth at the Samuel J. Green Charter School in New Orleans, the site of Waters's first full-blown satellite program. Waters calls the visionary curriculum "eco-gastronomy." It teaches the whole child through some of the most basic human endeavors: gardening, cooking, serving and eating. The Edible Schoolyard isn't about having a little garden--it's a radical program meant to address issues of hunger, health and sustainability.

And it works. According to a study by Harvard Medical School, after only one year students at King demonstrated improved behavior, fewer emotional problems, higher grade-point averages and a better grasp of ecology.

The Edible Schoolyard, Waters says, "teaches children their moral obligation to be caretakers and stewards of the finite resources of our planet. And it teaches them the joy of the table, the pleasures of real work and the meaning of community.

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