The First Workshop

"Planting Seeds and Living a Healthy Lifestyle"

After introducing ourselves and the purpose of Semillas sostenibles, we explained some important facts:

• Healthy eating and sustainability is beneficial for ourselves and our environment--sustainable means that we don't destroy our resources, but can reuse them more than once
• Child obesity rates (ages 6-11) rose from 6.5% in 1980 to 19.6% in 2008
• Fast food and healthy food: you can achieve a healthy balance with a colorful plate

Vocabulary: we show pictures that align with the images in the individual vocabulary books and ask the students to guess what the pictures represent.  They LOVED it!  It turned into a guessing game with the following words: 

1. Farmer's market: markets, usually outdoors, where farmers sell their local produce to the public

2. Organic: of, relating to, yielding, or involving the use of food produced with the use of feed or fertilizer of plan or animal origin without employment of chemically formulated fertilizers, growth stimulants, antibiotics, or pesticides

3. Community garden: shared space in a neighborhood where residents who live in apartments or houses without suitable yards grow produce

 

4. Environment: a) the complex of physical, chemical, and biotic factors (as climate, soil, and living things) that act upon an organism or an ecological community and ultimately determine its from and survival; b) the aggregate of social and cultural conditions that influence the life of an individual or community

5. Health: the condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit; especially: freedom from physical disease or pain

Activity 1: "Where Does Your Food Come From?":

Each student was given 2 index cards with pictures of food.

It was their job to figure out where the food came from (tree, ground, ocean, chicken, or cow) and stick the picture on the corresponding image!

Many of the students knew right away where the food went, but some products, like sugar and pomegranate, that were a bit tricky!  Some thought the activity was easy, whereas others thought it was more difficult.

Activity 2: "Planting Seeds":

With the germinated seeds and expanded, peats, we came prepared for the kids to plant their own bean sprouts.  We explained that growing your own food is less expensive and it is important to know where your food comes from, and whether it has been affected by dangerous pesticides.  Some of them wanted to immediately start planting outside!

Recap:

Overall, the kids were VERY engaged and learned a lot--only 1 had heard of farmer's markets before our workshop!

We plan to spend more time on the vocabulary "game" at the next workshop, titled "Sustainability and Recycling."  More to come (with video!)...

Hasta luego,

Chiara, Caryn, and Katelyn