Bay Area April 2007
Nature at Play: The School Gardening Movement
by Rebecca Sang
Jorge eyes me with sharp sixth-grade distrust, holding the purple thing between his thumb and forefinger like something you've found decomposing in the basement. In reality, we're standing in the sun-drenched garden at Caritas Creek, an environmental education center in Occidental, CA. "It is not," he says, having clearly decided that I'm up to another one of my tricks—one that he's not going to fall for under any circumstances.
"It is," I say, trying to appear as genuine as possible. "It's a carrot. Really."
Amber sidles up and takes the offensive vegetable out of his hand, peering at it curiously. "It could be," she says.
"What is it, really? A beet?" I sense in Jorge's voice a small opening, and smile.
"Eat it."
"No way!"
"Go ahead, eat it."
Amber quickly hands the mystery vegetable back to Jorge. Moments ago, she'd chomped down on what she'd thought was lettuce and been sharply surprised when it turned out to be arugula.
Jorge gobbles up the carrot in a single bite, not wanting to dither in front of the cutest girl in the class. Two or three other kids have come over as well.
A suspenseful moment passes. Then, mouth still full of orange crumbles, Jorge bursts out the final ruling: "It's a carrot!"
Disconnected from Nature
I've only worked in garden education for a year or so, but my life has become dedicated to these moments when kids reconnect to nature in their raw, visceral way. Many of the things that children of past generations learned off-handedly, rarely overtly taught by parents or teachers, are amazing and startling to the youth that I work with in Sonoma County (purple carrots, for one). Many things that I think of as mundane are magically new or stunning to them, such as the fact that strawberries don't ripen until summer, or that potatoes grow under the ground, not hanging from a vine the way tomatoes do. For many kids in this country today, strawberries are available year-round, potatoes come from the grocery store and vaguely from some plant on a farm before that, and carrots are orange. Period.
While I deeply enjoy these moments of reconnection, they also remind me how disconnected many young people are from nature and the food cycle, and I know that this has serious consequences—consequences that echo the most pressing issues of our time. In 2005, journalist Richard Louv made a splash with his book Last Child in the Woods, which argues that in the last thirty years children of the digital age have become increasingly alienated from the natural world.
This, he argues, is damaging not only for their physical fitness, but also for their long-term mental and spiritual heath. He calls this phenomenon "nature-deficit disorder," citing a growing body of scientific research that suggests children who are given ongoing positive exposure to nature thrive in intellectual, spiritual and physical ways that their "shut-in" peers do not. By reducing stress, sharpening concentration, and promoting creative problem solving, he argues that "nature-play" might be a promising (and enjoyable) treatment for attention-deficit disorder, hyperactive disorder, and other increasingly common childhood ailments.
Gardens and Nutrition
Studies have also shown that when kids grow their own food in school gardens, they are more willing than children who do not have access to school gardens to taste and eat vegetables. In an age where childhood obesity and innutrition are on the rise simultaneously (due to both the profundity of processed foods and to rising food costs), many school gardens double as community gardens and serve a twofold mission that can be boiled down to a single concept: to get healthy, fresh, locally produced food to those who most need it.
"Community gardens cultivate both food and community," notes Grayson James, the director of Petaluma Bounty, a non-profit that partners with local schools and organizations to create a local food system that ensures that residents have access to healthy organic food. This agenda is served by three major programs: a food gleaning program that gives away food that would normally be thrown away (a whopping 20 percent of all food produced); a nutrition outreach program; and a school-community garden program that brings garden-based education to local school classrooms while providing a way for their families to grow their own food.
Currently, the organization is in the process of creating school-community gardens at McKinley and McDowell elementary schools.
The first time I saw the gardening space at McKinley elementary I was reminded not of a blank canvas, but of a master painter's palette; I knew that the plots filled with dark compost, the aisles lined with copper mulch made from redwood, and the gleaming silver new pipes that will serve as the garden's irrigation would soon be the expressive means of gardeners big and small. In this garden, families and school staff members are working together to cultivate food and community.
But there's a long way to go just yet. March in Petaluma heralds the end of deadly frost and the beginning of the growing season: the vision for the rest of spring and early summer is one of herbs, heirloom vegetables, and edible flowers.
Petaluma Bounty's vision is a concrete example of the "seed-to-table" concept lauded by the California School Garden Network. Seed-to-table is an educational model that takes students through the entire process of planting, harvesting, preparing food, and recycling food waste. It's public education at its finest and most innovative: focused on the well being of students in a holistic way, connected to the surrounding community, and keenly aware of the environmental issues facing the planet today.
Creating a school garden of your very own
If you'd like to help create a garden-education program for your school or community center, there are four basic concepts to keep in mind, according to the Aquatic Outreach Institute in Solano County.
Firstly, start with a small program—it's wonderful to be inspired by the unlimited potential at your fingertips, but it's easy to get overwhelmed. Better to create a small, easily managed plan and expand later than to get discouraged.
Secondly, give your program a strong structure. We're not just talking about arbors or fences; set up your program so that gardening activities are scheduled on a regular basis. Even if the weather makes gardening outside impossible, use the time to read a garden story, create an art project, or teach kids about botany. This way, your staff and kids will be able to know what to expect, giving your program stability and permanence.
Next, always involve the students, teachers, and parents in the planning process. This will spark everyone's enthusiasm and nurture a sense of communal ownership over the garden.
Finally, shape your program to meet your specific passions and needs, rather than comparing your project to that at another site or one you've read about in a book. There are over 5,000 school gardens in California, and each one has different goals, schedules, purposes, and, of course, participants. The garden should fit the desires and interests of the people involved, and be tailored to match the gifts that they bring.
School gardening is an amazing way to cultivate ecological responsibility, connection, and personal awareness among coming generations. As the onions and marigolds grow, so do our children's minds, bodies and spirits.
Rebecca Sang is a school garden coordinator in Sonoma County. She holds a master's degree from Naropa University and is dedicated to the work of reconnecting people to nature and to one another. For more information on her current project, see www.PetalumaBounty.org or email her at RebeccaSangASong@yahoo.com. The California School Garden Network is an excellent resource on school gardening, grants and fundraising, adopt a garden programs and more, www.csgn.org.
In the Spirit of Trees
How a photographer, his art and a few naked people may have saved an oak grove from destruction
by Bente Mirow
Take a small but internationally known community, university politics and add an environmental issue. What do you have? Much talk and a dose of activism. Add an artist, the souls of old trees and tree-lovers. What do you get? Attention, love, ridicule, heightened talk and more activism. Now stir in a dash of naked people. What does it look like now? Major news and the police on alert.
It happened in the city of Berkeley, already known for its attention to people politics, the environment, leftist liberal ways and their famous university producing freethinkers and regarded experts in all fields. The university, which in many ways defines the city, wants to build a new stadium for their athletes. After investigation and research, three suitable sites have been found. The one favored would be built where the old one is. Sounds simple enough, but not so.
The first major problem, which is second in attention, is that it sits on the Hayward fault—a safety risk for any new building, and as many would argue, enough reason to dismiss this option without further ado.
The second problem, and the one getting all the attention, is that hugging one corner of the current stadium is a small grove of coastal live oak trees. Most of these would be sacrificed to a new, bigger stadium. Coastal live oak trees are protected in most California counties, the city of Berkeley being no exception. Shouldn't that be an obvious and simple second—or first—reason to dismiss this site?
It gets more complicated. The University of Berkeley is not the city, but the state. They do not need to honor the laws of the city. Even though the University of California Natural Reserve System awarded UC Berkeley representatives a $263,600 grant in 2001 "to develop the framework for a long-term research, monitoring, and training program to restore and manage California's threatened coastal oak ecosystem," the university insists they "are not obliged to follow local environmental laws." Memorial Oak Grove is the last remaining mature coastal oak grove in the Berkeley flatlands. The oldest tree is 200 years old.
Environmentalists, activists and tree-lovers came together to fight the university's plans and protect the Memorial Oak Grove. SOS, or Save the Oaks at the Stadium, is supported by geologists, scientific experts, community leaders, Sierra Club, local citizens and UC Berkeley students, faculty and alumni. Volunteers moved into the trees and a select group has lived high in the oaksπ crowns since December 2006.
The university has offered to replace each sacrificed tree with three new ones, but according to SOS, a treeπs environmental value is measured in biomass and the amount of leaves it produces. It would take 100 new trees to replace one of the existing ones.
In January, San Francisco-based photographer Jack Gescheidt entered the picture, bringing what he does to the Berkeley Memorial Grove; namely taking photos of old trees with naked people in and around them through his TreeSpirit Project. Gescheidt is a devoted tree-lover and has come to this approach not from a need to provoke attention, but to bring focus to the connection between trees and people. The nakedness binds the trees and bodies together in a natural, timeless expression. Gescheidt works peacefully and quietly, combining his passion for trees with his passion for people and photography, bringing all three together into a higher dimension. Hearing about the perils of the trees in this grove, he placed himself in the middle.
On Saturday, March 17, Gescheidt's passion made him an activist. Although he initiated the combined effort of featuring and honoring the threatened grove in photographic form, he was stepping out of his known environment to take a lead in something he felt was valuable. In the days leading up to the occasion, several TV stations and newspapers ran stories of the upcoming event.
Gescheidt was on a roller coaster and there was no way back. Not that he wanted to go back; he was in it with his soul.
It's Saturday morning and journalists, TV stations, volunteer models, supporters and on-lookers arrive at a steady rate. Joanne Dwyer, one of three founders of SOS, hoists pancakes and eggs up to one of the tree-homes. In another corner someone yells to the heavens "do you want milk in your coffee?" Gescheidt prepares his equipment, introduces people, breathes deeply. He knows he may be arrested. An ordinance was placed on campus in 1992 prohibiting public nudity after a student started going to classes in the buff. The tree-sitters are trespassing and previous installations on the ground were removed by police.
As Gescheidt animatedly speaks about his feelings for the trees, he is startled by the police officer standing by his side. He turns to shake his hand; the two men are face to face, each representing peace in their own way. One intends to break a campus ordinance in the name of trees, art and peace, the other about to arrest him should he choose to do so. Both men have soulful eyes and clearly neither wants to be in the other's face. While this charged, yet peaceful exchange takes place, Tinkerbell, one of the veteran tree-sitters perched high in her tree, plays her guitar and sings a peace song. It's the perfect accompaniment, the real-life troubadour. Hollywood couldn't have done it better.
From up in a tree, Gescheidt addresses the crowd. He confirms that we have the right to public assembly, that we come in peace, and our goal is bringing people together for the sake of these trees, and that humans, when naked, are vulnerable, present and obviously harmless. He welcomes the news media surrounding us as they elevate attention and make a public outcry more likely should the police choose to act. As Gescheidt said: "News will go out to the world that a group of naked people gathered in a small grove of trees." I wonder how many people are remembering the Berkeley's People's Park events in 1969, when the police and Governor Ronald Reagan attempted to silence the Berkeleyans and their wish to keep a park a park. Gescheidt is aware that the attention the nudity brings to the issue is a mixed blessing, but expects to be victorious.
Having previously shared with me that one of his biggest fears is public speaking, I can't help but wonder about the ease at which he performs, a natural and charismatic leader entwined with a tree, emanating a serious kinship. He declares his respect for the officers, who he says are simply doing their job, and also shares his fears with the crowd, telling us he is taking one moment at a time. The crowd echoes their support and one woman shares an African proverb: "When you cross the river in a crowd you won't be eaten by the crocodile."
The dressed rehearsal takes a good half hour. Gescheidt moves people and things away, and applies his professional eye to the picture he creates. Five people hang above in the branches temporarily out from their humble digs under the oak's protective canopy and their own man-made one.
The moment has come to decide what, if anything, is next. Gescheidt tells the crowd he wants to proceed and advises people not to participate if they have any concerns. Five minutes nude, he says, is all he needs.
People start to shed their clothes all around. Naked people silently mingle and lie down on the ground, as if this is what they do every morning. There is a quiet beauty in this scene, pregnant with shape and visual play, and so many human bodies seemingly joining the rhythm of nature. The police watch, but do not move.
Gescheidt finishes quickly and clearly relieved, announces: "Love prevailed here today."
I place myself next to the officer and ask what made him decide not to arrest Gescheidt. He answers: "We admonished him. And there are only two of us and so many of them." Could it be the police felt threatened by a small group of naked people after all?
Gescheidt brought a powerful message to the grove, the city of Berkeley, the police and the university. He brought together tree-lovers, art-lovers, environmentalists, officers, students and faculty, local citizens—all to peacefully witness the connection between humans and trees. The grove was honored by his presence, and the event and the numerous films, pictures and stories that will follow are testaments to this grove's dignity and need for our respect.
SOS points out that a university that produced 27 Nobel Laureates can find a way to build a new gymnasium without destroying a natural resource or breaking local environmental laws. They remind the university that we all should be part of the environmental solution, and that a leading university like Berkeley's would set a very poor example in refusing to participate in fighting influences on global warming in their own backyard.
Throughout time oaks have been venerated trees, honored by the Greeks, Romans, Celts, Slavs and Teutonic tribes, and worshipped by the Druids. Ancient kings presented themselves as the personifications of the mistletoes placed on oaks by the hands of God. Socrates quoted the authorities at the Zeus Temple, who claimed that "the first prophetic utterances came from an oak tree." And in the Norse mythology, Yggdrasil was the world tree, reaching from heaven to the underworld as a symbol of the interdependence of all forms of life.
Today we know trees are important to stave off global warming, a task of most importance to anyone, regardless of political orientation or circumstances. We also know older trees store more carbon dioxide and that oaks are low-maintenance, drought resistance trees.
The university suffered a first set-back in January when the court issued a preliminary injunction in the suit placed against them by SOS and the California Oak Foundation, barring the university from proceeding citing evidence of earthquake danger. Weighing obstacles and reason, and given that alternate sites exist, what could possibly keep the university insisting on this choice?
Gescheidt said it well there in the tree—we can have both, a new gymnasium and the old oak grove; it's so simple.
And as I write this, I too feel, like Gescheidt, and because of Gescheidt, that this garden of delight and all its supporters will be victorious.
For more information on SOS, check www.saveoaks.com. For information on Jack Gescheidt's Treespirit Project, photography and pictures from the event, go to www.treespiritproject.com. Bente Mirow is a freelance writer who writes what her heart and mind demand. She can be reached at hyggemer@netscape.net.