I spent the winter convincing students that cabbage is the bomb. And for the most part, it worked. Students looked forward to lunch when "Warren County cabbage" was on the menu. When the season was over, I was approached and asked, "WHERE is the Warren County cabbage? I want it to come BACK!" Students expressed that they loved eating it with their friends, pouring vinegar on it, or dousing it in hot sauce.

In partnering with the local non-profit Working Landscapes who actually got the cabbage (and collards) into the schools, I was able to conduct cabbage promotion activities in the garden, classroom, and cafeterias of all elementary schools in Warren County. Though now I must respond to monikers like, "cabbage lady," and "the one with the collards," I thoroughly enjoyed being at all our schools promoting these nutritional gems in the lunch line! Our Warren County products will be back this spring and so will the cabbage lady!

Cafeteria Promotion:
Above, A cabbage promotion table sits in the cafeteria at South Warren Elementary School. As they wait in the lunch line, I ask students while pointing to a huge cabbage, "Have you seen one of these before?" "Do you KNOW how delicious it is?" "Can you guess how much it weighs?" When we finish talking about cabbage and how awesome it is, students are ready to pick it in the lunch line and eat it up at the table. A third grader who guessed the correct weight of our cabbage got to take it home. She cooked it up with her grandma and declared it, "the best ever."
Garden and Nutrition Education:
Below, Mariam Boyd 5th grader, Keyandre, harvests a whole cabbage plant from neighbor Rob's awesome garden. During Culinary Club, we brought our harvest home from this garden visit and cooked up some delicious sauteed cabbage. Students were able to relate the scrumptious cabbage they were cooking up after school to the cabbage on the lunch line. 

"We should be wearing berets!" Jaylen, 5th grade, exclaimed as he was painting the side of his garden. Ms. Simons's class at Vaughan Elementary gave their garden a makeover last week, painting it neon green! Students were very focused as they carefully layered on even coats of paint. The paint will serve to decorate their garden and also prevent against splinters and wood rot. Hopefully the bright green will encourage our pollinator friends to visit the garden!

After painting, we all went inside to learn, what is in paint? Jaylen correctly hypothesized that glue (latex), water, and coloring are in paint. Watching how paint was made in a factory was very fun, and allowed Leroy to remark, "That is one amazing machine!"

In March, 1st graders at Northside Elementary and South Warren Elementary participated in FoodCorps programming, expanding upon their science lessons around soil. To learn about the importance of soil and what it contains, FoodCorps led some lessons from the 4H Curriculum, "Soil Solutions." In one lesson, students compared two types of soil from around their school and created a hypothesis, guessing which soil would have more sand particles in it. To the left, a South Warren student writes his hypothesis in his garden journal.

This spring lessons will continue, focusing on ecosystems for plants and animals, as well as goods and services when it's time to harvest our delicious veggies from the garden! 

Michael Ring, organizer of Warren County's Community Garden project at the Senior Center, visited WCHS Garden Club last week to help start seeds. Students planted alongside Michael the following starts: tomatoes, jalapenos, bell peppers, assorted herbs, and eggplant. Seeds were donated by Cherry Gal, a Warren County heirloom seed company, and FoodCorps.

On the left, freshman Adam Long waters our seed starts. Garden Club will be responsible for raising the plants until time to place them in the community garden this spring. Students are excited to participate in a community service project that serves their county outside of school.