Program Accomplishments
Urban Sprouts reached a total of 771 students during the 2009-2010 school year.
We partnered with seven schools: Aptos Middle School, International Studies Academy (ISA), June Jordan School for Equity, Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School, SF Community School, Ida B. Wells Continuation High School, and Log Cabin Ranch. These schools serve San Francisco neighborhoods including the OMI/Excelsior, Sunnydale, Visitacion Valley, Portola, Bayview-Hunters Point, and Western Addition. Of students reached this year, 62% are low-income and 90% are youth of color: 34% Latino; 23% African American; 26 % Asian American; and 6% Pacific Islander. Also, 62% of students we serve are defined as educationally disadvantaged by the San Francisco Unified School District.
In class Garden-based Education
Over 745 students participated in Urban Sprouts’ core garden-based education program that takes place during science and elective classes. Our garden-based classes meet for one hour every other week throughout the school year for a total of 20 hours of participation for every student. Each class is led by a Garden Educator and our curriculum consists of interactive academic learning and garden work. Each student in our classes is able to experience a full garden process by planting, growing, harvesting and cooking and eating crops from the school garden at least three times during the school year. Since our students participate in full circle of garden life, they strengthen their ecoliteracy and environmental responsibility.
In addition, our high school courses at ISA and June Jordan included curriculum on nutrition, food production, distribution and marketing, food policy, and the environmental impact of agriculture, as well as a farm field trip to Pie Ranch in Pescadero, CA.
Garden-based Youth Leadership
This year we continued our leadership opportunities for smaller groups of students, to engage more intensively with the garden and to lead related school-wide activities. Students at Ida B. Wells and Aptos who were interested in a more intensive experience in the garden worked with our Garden Educator after school on gardening projects and smaller, more one-on-one time with our instructors. Students at ISA started a composting project where they presented their findings to their peers.
Summer Program
For the third summer, Urban Sprouts partnered with the Garden for the Environment (GFE) to host a two-week summer program for 26 youth, meeting for four hours each day at the GFE.
Urban Sprouts trained and supervised 7 high school students who served as staff for the 19 middle school-aged participants. The Summer Program included: daily garden work; an intensive curriculum on gardening, recycling/composting, nutrition and sustainable agriculture; daily harvest and preparation of a healthy breakfast and lunch; a field trip to a nearby educational farm; a guest chef from a San Francisco restaurant; a guest instructor educating the students about graywater; and a youth-led event where participants shared their learning with their families and friends and created take-home actions to apply their learning at home (examples included kits for home recycling, composting, and gardening).
Events
During the school year, Urban Sprouts has hosted these community-wide events to build involvement in the garden program:
- • Salad Day: students at all three middle schools harvested, prepared and served school-grown salads to the entire school at lunch. Additionally some of our sites hosted school wide tacos parties and sushi making parties, using school grown and harvested ingredients;
- • Garden Work Parties: students and staff host garden workdays, including gardening, harvesting, cooking, woodworking and other activities, attended by students, families, teachers and community members.
- • Mural Day: Students, parents and the Aptos Middle School community were invited to help Urban Sprouts and a local muralist design and execute a colorful, educational mural in the school garden. Students were involved in the whole design process from what they wanted the mural to convey about their garden to painting each element onto the wall.
New Family Programming
This year we launched our Farmers-In-Residence (FIR) program, with funding support from the Network for a Healthy California. This program encourages parent involvement and participation in our garden curriculum by helping parents to grow their own food at two of our school sites. Five families designed, planted and harvested food in garden beds at our school sites with support from our staff. We recruited families through our partner schools, parent teacher associations, our garden work-days and cooking classes.
We held these brand new cooking classes at two school sites. Over the course of two 6-week sessions, 9 families participated in classes that provided nutritional education and coupled it with practical recipes and tips to help families eat more healthily. Participants also received fresh groceries at the end of each class, so they could try the new recipes in their own kitchens. Next year we will continue to hold cooking classes, train this year’s family participants to become peer educators, and work with 18 new families at 3 school sites to design and grow their own food in the garden.
Evaluation Results
Urban Sprouts conducted surveys and focus groups to determine the degree of students’ new knowledge, attitudes and behaviors after participating in our programs. Urban Sprouts’ objectives included increases in students’ preferences for consuming fruits and vegetables and gains in ecoliteracy as a result of participating in our programs. During May 2010, Urban Sprouts implemented a survey questionnaire, student focus groups and key informant interviews.
After participating in Urban Sprouts’ programs:
- Students said their preference for fruits and vegetables had increased; 86% of respondents reported liking new fruits or vegetables that they tried for the first time.
- Students said that their fruit and vegetable consumption increased; 60% of responses indicated that students eat more fruits and vegetables than previously.
- Students said that their physical activity levels increased; 62% of responses indicated that students exercise more than they did before.
In their own words, during focus groups students described the outcomes of Urban Sprouts’ programs in these ways:
- “Instead of me drinking soda, I make fresh orange juice.”
- “Eat a little bit more organic stuff like healthy drinks.”
- “You would be motivated to come to class, you wouldn’t be like this is just another day.”
And some additional quotes specifically from Summer Sprouts youth participants:
“Yes, yes, yes [my habits have changed]! I don’t eat so much candy, chips and soda. I try to eat more fruits. I told my mom about a lot of things I learned here and now she goes to the grocery store and buys more fruits and veggies.”
“Eat ‘Food’, Not too much, Mostly Plants. Try to watch how many sweets I’m eating and instead of buying candy and chips I can eat a fruit I like. And I will never eat cup of noodles again.”
“Being more conscious of the waste I produce, especially petroleum products, really try hard to reduce and resuse.”
“I’ll stop drinking plastic bottle water instead use a reusable metal bottle.”
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