LifeLab - UC Santa Cruz

I have long been interested in training K-12 teachers in sustainable food production and continue to serve as an adviser for the "Planting Seeds of Change" program at the Seven Oak Middle School in Lebanon, OR. It was therefor great to visit the LifeLab at UC Santa Cruz. It is a wonderful place and dedicated staff there have created the premier organization for outdoor science teacher training. They primarily work "directly with teachers to help them use school gardens and hands-on science programs effectively."

I met with the Executive Director, Gail Harlamoff, who showed me around the place and patiently answered my questions. LifeLab started over 30 years ago with a few elementary school teachers in Santa Cruz who believed in the value of school gardens. They pulled together some resources and started consulting and from there it just snowballed. Since then they were able to secure millions of grant dollars from the NSF and various foundations, train thousands of educators and enrich many, many children's education and lives. A grant from the Packard foundation allowed them to build the current LifeLab, housed on the UC Santa Cruz Campus. The experiential garden area is the cutest place I have seen in along time.

Gail and I talked much about how we can improve "food literacy". We shared stories about how food system illiterate many agriculture and culinary arts college students are and what could be done to improve that. That is of special importance to me as I am trying to connect my college's horticulture and culinary arts programs. LifeLab offers a garden-enhanced nutrition eduction program called "Plant it, Grow it, Eat it". It would be huge step if ag and culinary students could take or if I could duplicate it at LBCC. We talked about other ideas such as asking culinary students to create meals from what is available in a market garden at a particular time of the year.

Another program we talked about at length is called "Food What?" according to their website "a youth empowerment program using food, through sustainable agriculture and health, as the vehicle for bringing about personal growth and transformation.a program for teens". I was impressed with the gardens the teens managed and the stories Gail shared.

This was another great visit which will help me form my ideas for the educational experience I want to create.