The Granny's Garden School: a place where healthy and sustainable diet education begins.

The summer is almost over, the schools reopened and we are all adjusting to the school day routine. Hope you all add a great time.
The feedback to our last activity before the summer was great.
As you may recall we spent a morning visiting the Granny's Garden School in Loveland.
We had 100% fun, 50% educational and 50% interesting.

Here are some more information about Granny's Garden School collected for us by Brigitte Cordier, one of our fantastic members and owner of Anyone Can Cook, LLC.

“Granny's Garden School uses the school grounds to create sustainable school gardens and habitats that help children discover the nature in their own back yards, experience the satisfaction of growing and preparing their own food and the simple pleasure of picking a flower.
Granny's Garden started in 2002 when grandmothers of two (Roberta Paolo) found out that child are losing touch with the natural world. Naturally, she started at her grandchildren school in Loveland, where she lives. There was 1 garden bed in front of one classroom 6 years ago: there are now more than 100 beds! 50 teachers and 1700 kids are now involved in the program. It is the largest program of that kind in the Midwest.
Granny's Garden School (GGS) collaborate with the school and the community to offer fun and imaginative, hands on learning opportunities that compliment and enhance the school curriculum and assist other educators in their efforts to develop a program for their school.

Although located on school grounds, GGS is an independent, non-profit organization that is financially independent of the local school system. To operate, GGS relies on grants, corporate and private financial and material donations, and fundraisers.

GGS is the outdoor lab that offers a creative and environmentally interactive approach to teach curriculum standards. The students learn by questioning, doing, and observing.

They garden organically, and use normally unwanted garden pests as opportunities to discuss the interdependence of plants and animals, including the students. They teach students to respect the living and non-living resources in their environment with examples of recycling fall leaves for compost, newspaper for weed reduction, and plastic blinds for plant markers, to name a few.

GGS consists of a small group of paid staff to plan, develop, and organize program resources, including volunteers, lessons, and supplies.

Since the beginning in the spring of 2002 and has been steadily increasing the programs offered to students based on increased participation and interest of teachers and school administrators. They also have the opportunity not only to share information and resources, but also to develop student projects with school garden programs in other countries to collect and compare data using the environment and gardens.
The Business Courier published this article last June about Granny's Garden School
Learning tastes better with touch of nature at Granny's Garden School in Loveland
Published: June 23, 2008
Roberta Paolo is on a mission to get Southern Ohio children off their couches and outside to plant potatoes, flowers or peas. To continue reading, go to: http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2008/06/23/story22.html?b=1214193600^1653151&surround=etf