Food and Gardens

This week, we are reading Chapter 3 in The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The fifth graders are intrigued by the information they’re learning from the book, and our reading has prompted interesting class discussions. The first part of the book talks about the history of corn in the Americas (which will tie into social studies when we learn about the Columbian exchange between Native Americans and Europeans). The children were surprised to learn how pervasive corn has become in our American food culture – not necessarily real, whole corn, but instead the kind that shows up in corn-fed livestock and processed foods. We talked about the recent invention of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and how seed companies have changed the face of farming in the last few decades. We were surprised to see how little crop diversity there is on American farms nowadays compared to 1920.

You can’t read about food without wanting to eat it, so we also did a Tuesday Tasting which featured – you guessed it – corn! Sadly, corn on the cob is not in season right now, so instead we tasted canned organic sweet corn, frozen organic sweet corn, organic blue corn tortilla chips, and organic popcorn. The fifth graders used their senses and their wonderful vocabularies to describe the nuances of each corn product.

This week, we will get into the garden to prepare our bed for fall planting. Many more classes are going to be gardening this year (yay!), which means less space for us (boo!). We are still working out the logistics (and cost) of expanding our TCS garden so that we have ample space for everyone.