Sometimes our work brings us to areas of potential controversy. For example, in dealing with an energy issue such as finite fossil fuels, we as educators are faced with the task of presenting this within a positive, empowering context. Rather than dwell on the problems surrounding the use of non-renewable petroleum products, instead we focus on how we can conserve them, and use alternatives such as the sun, wind, and water. In an attempt to present a whole picture of an issue, we trust that given all of the options, a child will make wise and conscious choices in time to come. The programs we run for children are based at the New Alchemy Institute in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Our twelve-acre site is a living laboratory of research and education in organic gardening, solar greenhouse design and management, energy conservation, integrated pest management, and aquaculture. The New Alchemy Institute is becoming a growing resource and openair learning place for children in the community. We currently have three major programs for children. If you are thinking a year ahead, sow a seed. If you are thinking ten years ahead, plant a tree. If you are thinking one hundred years ahead, Educate the people. Old Chinese Proverb The first is our summer children's workshop. Each day, local children come via bike or carpool to participate in a three-week exploration of our twelve acres and surrounding woods. On any given day, you might find children working in their gardens, baking brownies in a solar oven, making wind chimes from our bamboo plants, or writing a story in their journals. The second program we offer throughout the school year is a series of Saturday workshops, each focusing on a different aspect of the work we do. Parents and children have been enjoying fall gardening, forest walks, and solar Saturdays. One supportive parent copied the workshop flyer and distributed it to an entire school. The response from the community has been overwhelmingly favorable. The third program is a combined effort between the New Alchemy Institute and the Falmouth public schools. This is a hands-on gardening addition to the existing science curriculum used in the classroom. The fourth graders design, plant, care for, and harvest their garden at New Alchemy. Through in-class activities and on-site visits, the children learn about the entire growing cycle. We encourage parents and community members to participate in this program by asking them to volunteer their time while the children are at New Alchemy. We are finding that by opening up the New Alchemy Institute to local children, we become more accessible to their parents and the community at large. Through the network of excited parents, via their children, the response to the work being done at the New Alchemy Institute is favorable and rapidly establishing our role as an important resource in this community. We find local businesses pleased to contribute or donate materials for the children's programs and local newspapers happy to January/February 1985 RAIN Page 21 give us publicity and coverage. We are in the process of expanding our educational programs, to include teacher training workshops in other school districts. There's a wide variety of innovative environmental education programs throughout the country. One of the most inspirational is the Project Life Lab in Santa Cruz County, California. What began as a three-acre school parking lot has evolved into a demonstration facility where school children learn science and nutrition through gardening. It has become an integrated part of the science programs in eleven public schools, and recent funding now allows for its expansion statewide. The adopting schools use the three-volume curriculum set to begin a garden, ranging from container boxes to large plots, and integrate the hands on activities into the classroom. Students, parents, and community members provide the time, energy, and materials to make this program so successful. One school is now preparing and selling to the community vegetable soups from their garden. The Life Lab program is a flourishing example of what can happen when the community becomes involved in educational programs. (The three-volume curriculum is available for $33 from Friends of the Harvest, Life Lab Science Programs, 809 Bay Avenue, Suite H, Capitola, CA 95010.) Hopes for a sustainable planet lie in the choices we make today, and our children will make tomorrow. Kim Knorr and Debbie Habib are environmental educators working at the New Alchemy Institute in Falmouth, Massachusetts (237 Hatchville Road, East Falmouth, MA 02536; 6171563-2655). FROM: The Youth Gardening Book-see page 22
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