Tag: education

Incorporating Locally Produced Foods into School Cafeteria Menus Through Farm to School

Written by Isabella Susino on 06/11/2026. Posted in Ag in the Classroom.

To a student armed with a lunch tray and an appetite, a cafeteria line looks deceptively simple. The food magically appears, with no hint of the legalities, formulas and contracts that get it from the producers to the trays.

Behind the scenes, there’s a lot going on, including work with state and federal agencies and local producers to get children the food they need. It isn’t always easy, and adds nuance to an already complex system.

Person serving food on tray in cafeteria — Sasha Pulsifer, Food Service Helper and Garden Club Lead at Boquet Valley Central School’s Lake View Campus. Photo by Isabella Susino.

“In New York State there are general laws that outline the different procurement thresholds and tiers that all businesses or institutions, schools, state agencies and county governments need to follow to ensure proper procurement,” said Meghan Dohman, North Country Farm to School Procurement Specialist for Cornell Cooperative Extension Harvest New York.

The laws are in place to prevent sweetheart deals, favoritism and conflict of interest, but the process can be very cumbersome. Typically, the laws require schools to have three quotes from prospective local vendors to submit before moving forward with contracts.

North Country school districts participating in the Champlain Valley Educational Services (CVES) scratch-cooking program, which seeks to jettison sugar and ultra-processed foods in favor of whole foods grown closer to home, do have tools that can help.

Districts can, for example, prioritize geographic proximity or special criteria when ordering foods. But there are complexities. Geographically prioritized food must be in a raw state, which eliminates products like tomato sauce, even if it’s healthy tomato sauce. Cafeterias can write in criteria that help local farmers compete, but that just recalibrates the formula; it’s not a sure-fire way to guarantee cafeteria foods will be locally sourced.

“Geographic Preference bids have criteria that favors more localized producers, but there are still times when a statewide producer may have a product that’s cheaper, and even though they’re not hitting all of the criteria, they might still win the bid,” Dohman said.

Cafeteria meal tray with burger, fruit, and veggies — Boquet Valley CSD lunch tray given to a student. Photo by Isabella Susino.

School menus are as much about math as they are about food. Nice as it might be to get every element of a meal from healthy, local sources, federal funding presumes big commodity purchases from corporations that may not be in line with the mission but are necessary to lower the overall cost per meal.

Districts make tactical purchases of cheap products, knowing that it will allow them to work more healthy, local food into their menus and budgets.

“The cafeterias have their own budget line, and they have to be self-sufficient,” Dohman said. “So they’re putting meals together for pennies on the dollar, and a commodity allocation from the government is the only way that they can spend any money on local food and afford the meals they do.”

Along with the federal government, the state has a hand in the process, rewarding districts that obtain 30% of their food from New York — a goal CVES-affiliated districts exceed, said Julie Holbrook, Shared Food Service Director for CVES.

Once all the paperwork is done, cafeterias can focus on putting healthy foods into cafeteria meals.

“There are a lot of ways we can use local ingredients,” Holbrook said. “With the way that we do our program with scratch cooking, it allows us to incorporate local food, and not just fruits and salad bar items — we incorporate things into our recipes like local onions in all our sauces. All those things add up. We have a farmer who just reached out who said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a lot of butternut squash,’ so we have the ability with our ovens to actually bake down a lot of butternut squash, freeze it in sizable portions, and make muffins out of it, or serve it as a hot vegetable.”

Barrett Miller, school lunch manager at CEWW BOCES, whose territory includes four North Country counties, said the process must be focused enough to do long-term meal planning, but also flexible enough to account for what foods are available in-season and the popularity of foods among the kids — which can vary from school to school.

“We always try to listen to and allow the cafeteria staff that’s actually there every day to have their opinion on what they know that the kids are really enjoying, because they’re seeing it there firsthand,” Miller said. “Local food doesn’t do any good if the students don’t want to eat it.”

At the same time, cafeterias are enticing children to try new things, and there are multiple tricks of the trade to encourage them to do so. For example, they might not care much about nutritional values, Holbrook said, but if you suggest that a menu item is “brain food,” they are more apt to try — especially if they have a test coming up.

Person adding mustard to a hamburger on a tray — Lunch service personnel putting mustard on a student’s burger. Photo by Isabella Susino.

“We know that physically, mentally, emotionally, it makes a difference in their days when they have local organic eggs and local organic yogurt for breakfast,” Holbrook said. “They’re going to have a better day, academically, emotionally and physically. So it doesn’t take long before the buy-in comes.”

Cornell Cooperative Extension programs, including the Rooted in Learning program, also help, with hands-on lessons and education that prepare kids to think more deeply about the foods they eat and where these foods come from.

Those programs supplement cafeteria staff that are more aware today of the importance of good food — and feel empowered to do their part in educating students.

To get kids to try something new, little tastes or “bites” will be put on their trays. Even if students are reluctant to eat it, they can smell, touch, observe its color, and basically become more familiar with new things.

Because food directly contributes to educational outcomes, cafeteria staff find their work more rewarding.

“For us food is about more than what’s on the lunch tray,” said Sasha Pulsifer, a cook at Boquet Valley’s Lakeview campus in Westport. “We’re helping students learn that food fuels their bodies and connects them to our community. By serving local products whenever possible, we’re giving kids a chance to experience fresh foods, try new things, and build healthy habits — without pressure.”

Making the buy-in easier is the quality of local foods, Miller said. A carrot that’s just been pulled from a local field is sweeter, crisper and more colorful than those that show up in a box from a continent away. It also matters to students that it was grown a few miles from their school and makes them more curious about their local farms and agriculture.

“Our school lunch program supports learning beyond the classroom,” Pulsifer said. “When students see and taste local foods, they connect lessons from science, geography, and health to real life. Our goal is simple: create confident, curious eaters who feel good about food.”

Rather than an afterthought, the cafeteria becomes a classroom in its own right, inspiring discussion not just of food, but of all the things that food touches.

School Cafeterias Present Opportunities for Everyday Nutrition-Based Learning

Written by Isabella Susino on 05/13/2026. Posted in Ag in the Classroom.

By Tim Rowland | Contributing Writer

On a chilly Monday morning, educators, administration, and school lunch staff at Boquet Valley Central School’s Lake View Campus came together to discuss how they could connect local food procurement with Agriculture in the Classroom lessons. This meant brainstorming ways the cafeteria could be a fun place for kids to learn about food and nutrition. Education doesn’t end at the classroom doors, children can learn on a trip through the cafeteria line, too.

Imagery is an important part of this education, said Cornell Cooperative Extension of Essex County (CCE Essex) Community Vitality Resource Educator Ellie Hoffman. Sugary, highly processed foods are presented to kids with bright, happy colors and a veritable army of grinning cartoon characters to catch their eyes. Fresh, local foods don’t often have that advantage, but they should.

“We see how ubiquitous junk food is — it’s everywhere,” Hoffman said. “We see it in pictures, in vending machines, and I like to imagine what could happen if we present healthy, local food the same way.”

This could mean putting up posters of, say, beets with a catchy slogan like “Beets, It’s What’s For Dinner!,” but it could also be along the lines of product placement in lessons and activities.

Cafeteria workers serving food to a student — Sasha Pulsifer, Food Service Helper and Garden Club Lead at Boquet Valley Central School’s Lake View Campus. Photo by Isabella Susino.

“If you’re seeing a picture of produce in an activity, or hearing it mentioned somewhere, then eating it in the cafeteria, ideas about fresh, local food start to sink in,” Hoffman said. “So I think the more we’re able to facilitate school-wide activities around food and connect food to student interests, the more we’ll continue to integrate healthy foods into their lives.”

Second-grade teacher Melissa Niquette noted that vegetables can be just as colorful as processed foods, a point that could be used to advantage in an Eat the Rainbow campaign. Foods of varied colors contain phytochemicals that can improve vision, decrease inflammation, strengthen the immune system and reduce the risk of cancers, heart disease and diabetes. With a rainbow as a visual aid, teachers and school lunch staff can equip students with the understanding and motivation that can eventually lead to lifelong healthy choices.

As they “eat the rainbow” and become more interested in healthy snacks and recipes prepared with fresh food, there are two keys to success: the foods need to be easy to prepare, and they have to be affordable, said Barrett Miller, Boquet Valley Lunch Manager. These two qualities encourage the recipes’ repetition at home and at school.

Woman preparing lunch with condiments — Stevi McCann, Cook Manager at Boquet Valley Boquet Valley Central School’s Lake View Campus. Photo by Isabella Susino.

“Maybe once a month you have a vegetable side dish that you’re going to encourage kids to try,” said second-grade teacher Peggy Staats. “Some may love it, some may not, but whatever it is, if you sent the recipe home with the kids, there would be a connection between the cafeteria and home life. Students might say, ‘Oh, this came from a farm, and it’s so delicious, mom, can you make this?’”

Another idea that came up in the course of the conversation was having students go on a field trip to their own cafeterias, where they could see what goes into food preparation. Teachers and cafeteria staff agreed on the need to coordinate lessons with school lunches, too. For example, the cafeteria could serve a Harvest of the Month vegetable like carrots on the same day that students are learning about roots in science or a local food educator is visiting to teach about farm fresh products.

School cafeteria tray with various food items — Pulsifer passing a lunch meal to a student at Boquet Valley Central School’s Lake View Campus cafeteria. Photo by Isabella Susino.

Of course, with all the other demands on educators and school lunch staff, there traditionally has been little time or energy for nutrition, even as it becomes more apparent how important it is for learning.

“I understand how hard it is,” Hoffman said. “But there are so many great things happening here. We just want to keep that momentum going, and we want to help you [Boquet Valley] keep it going. We’re not expecting you to do this by yourself.”

Bridging these gaps takes a village, one that is willing and ready to assist in making these transitions.

To connect with CCE Essex‘s Community Vitality Resource Educator Ellie Hoffman, reach out to her by email at emh257@cornell.edu; or by calling the CCE Essex Office at 518-962-4810.

AuSable Forks Elementary Students Get A Sweet Introduction At The Uihlein Maple Research Forest

Written by Isabella Susino on 04/15/2026. Posted in Ag in the Classroom.

By Tim Rowland | Contributing Writer

Freed of the walled confines of AuSable Forks Elementary School, 19 second graders sprinted up a snowy hill to explore the sugarbush where 6,500 maple trees are tapped each year by Cornell University’s Uihlein Maple Research Forest in Lake Placid.

Rustic buildings with steam rising from the roof — Cornell University Uihlein Maple Research Forest. Photo by Isabella Susino.

The class was there as part of Cornell Cooperative Extension of Essex County’s (CCE Essex) Rooted in Learning program, which explores local farms and foods, increasing students’ awareness of where their food comes from, and how positive food choices will help them lead healthy lives.

Second-grade teacher Liz Donahue said exploration of Adirondack forests also expands the children’s connection to the land and culture.

Thanks to a previous maple tree-tapping demonstration by CCE Essex Community Vitality Resource Educator Ellie Hoffman, the second graders understood the fundamentals of sugaring already. At the Uihlein Forest, they learned that it can be a long way from tree to pancake, with a lot of pipelines and big machinery in between.

“Farm field trips are where Farm to School programs come full circle,” Hoffman said. “Students might learn about agriculture in the classroom through hands-on activities and taste the products of that agriculture in their school cafeterias, but the farm or forest is where they discover how those products got to the cafeteria, and why knowing that matters.”

Director Adam Wild with AuSable Forks second grade students in the sugarbush. Photo by Liz Donahue.

Adam Wild, Director of the Uihlein Maple Research Forest, began by explaining how maple trees are identified in the forest by the color and texture of the bark. Maples were also identifiable by the blue piping affixed to their trunks, but that was cheating.

“These are natural, native forests,” Wild said. “These trees weren’t planted, so maple’s kind of cool in that we’re working in these natural forests in our Adirondack Mountains, and that’s where we get the sap from.”

These maples grow alongside other trees, such as fir and birch, and this diversity is good, he said, because it protects the forest as a whole against attacks from pests or disease that affects one particular species.

Uihlein Research Forest sap tubing. Photo by Adam Wild.

Tree with attached hose and metal fixture — Uihlein Research Forest sap tubing. Photo by Adam Wild.

Thirsting for action, the kids cheered when the sap was clearly visible flowing from the tree through the tubing — 100 miles of it in the Uihlein forest — that would send it to the sugar shack below.

If this tubing looks fragile, though, it’s because it is, and leaks can develop by way of a falling tree or a critter gnawing through the plastic. Wild encouraged the students to consider what animals might do the most damage, and they took turns guessing:

Bears? (They probably would, but they’re still hibernating). Bobcats? (Not so much.) Snake? (Haven’t seen one, but you never know.) Werewolves? (Nice try. Squirrels are the correct answer.

Electronics are used to detect these leaks and pinpoint their locations, saving maple technicians hours of walking and guesswork.

Maple trees are tapped when they are about 40 years old or at least 10 inches in diameter. The weather is an important ingredient in the process, with nights below freezing and gentle warmups during the day being ideal.

Maple syrup buckets hanging on trees in snowy forest — Maple forest with buckets attached to trees in winter. Photo by Matt Barnard.

While a bucket hanging from a tree with a wooden tap might be a picturesque icon of the past, it’s not practical at today’s scale. “You tapped one tree, right? Imagine doing that 6,499 more times,” Wild said. “And imagine having to walk up and down this hill in the snow, carrying all those buckets of sap, would that be fun?”

There was firm and universal consensus that it would not.

Noting that he is a maple tree scientist – at which point a student wanted to know if he’s the “mad” kind – Wild said he’s always involved in research projects.

“I’m investigating and trying to find answers from the trees, so I’m measuring the amount of sap that comes from those trees; measuring the temperature using different probes in the trees; measuring the pressure [of the sap inside the trees]; and soil temperatures [surrounding the trees]. Collecting all this data is to get those answers.”

Those answers will help producers improve their yields.

“We’re a little unique here in that we do research to improve maple production, and then we share that with other maple producers, so they can be better maple producers,” Wild said. “Kind of neat, right?”

The AuSable second graders demonstrated a good classroom knowledge of science, understanding things like DNA and how trees are able to produce oxygen. The Rooted in Learning field trip with CCE Essex showed them how these concepts might be put to practical use.

They also offered up some burning questions for Adam about being a scientist:
● Second grader: “Do you create stuff when you’re a scientist?”
● Adam Wild: “Yes, sometimes.”
● Second Grader: “Like monsters?”
● Adam Wild: “No, no monsters yet. But maybe one day we’ll make a Maple Monster.” (General affirmation among the second graders that a Maple Monster would be a laudatory scientific pursuit.)

Uihlein processes up to 12,000 gallons of sap a day. The sap arrives at the sap house downhill from the forest, where separators create a vacuum effect by separating the sap from the air in the tubing.

Sap separators at Uihlein Maple Research Forest. Photo by Isabella Susino.

The sap then transfers and collects in two enormous tanks, appropriately named Percy and Thomas. Wild watched the flow coming into the holding tanks and noted that it was good, but not as good as it could be. As the day warmed he hoped for an increase in sap volume. A good day will yield 150 gallons of syrup at Uihlein Maple Research Forest.

Percy and Thomas the sap collection tanks. Photo by Isabella Susino.

For the kids, it was a bit mind-bending to think that the droplets they saw seeping from the trees in the forest could add up to the gushers of sap filling Thomas and Percy.

They were also interested to learn about new terms, such as “reverse osmosis,” which has superseded much of the old process of boiling away the excess water. Sap now passes through filters that allow water molecules to flow through, while catching larger molecules of sugar and minerals.

Such sights make an impression, Donahue said, but students may also remember small, random details, like picking up a leaf, that will create a pleasant association with the forest.

“It’s nice for them to just get out and be outside for the day, doing something different,” she said. “Some of these kids may have family connections [to maple production] but some may not even go out on the weekends whatsoever — this lets them see what’s all around them in a different way.”

Tree tapping practice with Trever Sheehan, Technician II at Uihlein Maple Research Forest. Photo by Kim Chamberlain.

After practice tapping trees with a drill and a hammer, the students followed the process to the sugar shack, where a gleaming, stainless steel machine awaited to finish off the concentrating process.

“This machine is called an evaporator,” Wild said. “It’s basically a big, fancy stove, and the maple syrup is cooking down inside there.”

The sap evaporator at Uihlein Maple Research Forest. Photo by Isabella Susino.

The evaporator can make a gallon a minute, and by the end of the season, Wild hopes to have produced 3,000 gallons of syrup. And just to make sure it’s good, he had 19 quality control volunteers at his disposal, willing to give his latest batch a try. It was a sweet way to end an educational morning.

“By supporting schools in bringing kids to a farm for the day, we give students a chance to engage with the places where their food was grown, raised, or produced, and meet the farmers who made it possible,” Hoffman said. “It’s a place-based educational experience that connects the three C’s of Farm to School — classroom, cafeteria, and community — in a memorably adventurous way.”

The Home-Scale Forest Garden: New WPBS Original Show With Adirondack Harvest Member, Dani Baker

Written by Isabella Susino on 03/05/2026. Posted in Adirondack Harvest Members.

Since 2023, WPBS has been working in collaboration with Adirondack Harvest member, Dani Baker, to produce a weeknight show based on her book, The Home-Scale Forest Garden. The show will be on Mondays at 7:30 PM, beginning on March 9th. Community members can watch the show on WPBS-TV and can stream it for free on the PBS app.

Gardening programs have been a staple of the WPBS schedule, with shows like From a Country Garden and The Gardener with Ed Lawrence. With almost 25 years since WPBS aired a show produced in-house, the station is very excited to debut the new program, The Home-Scale Forest Garden.

“It’s really been a labor of love,” said Tracy DuFlo, Director of Production and Executive Producer at WPBS. “We filmed eight episodes over the four seasons, and it was very fascinating to see Dani’s garden on Wellesley Island transform with each season. One thing I found really interesting is that there is something to harvest in a home-scale forest garden almost year-round.”

Based on Wellesley Island, NY, in the beautiful Thousand Islands Region, Baker and her partner, David Belding, own Cross Island Farms, where the Enchanted Edible Forest is located. Baker is the author of The Home-Scale Forest Garden, a practical guide to creating a low-maintenance, sustainable, perennial, food-producing garden, and is the original blueprint of the show. On the farm, they grow certified organic fruit and vegetables, and raise chickens, grass-fed beef. Agritourism opportunities for visitors include U-pick fruit, farm and garden tours, rustic camping and volunteer opportunities to gain hands-on experience in sustainable agriculture.

Baker hopes to inspire viewers to create their own beautiful, bountiful, edible landscape at any scale—from a few dozen square feet to an acre or more. “I am very excited and grateful to have had the opportunity to work with WPBS on a TV series about forest gardening,” said Baker. “My lifetime ambition is to inspire as many people as possible to establish this kind of planting, where we work with nature to create abundant healthful harvests, while reducing our labor and helping the environment. A gardening show that is nationally distributed through PBS is the perfect vehicle to inform and inspire a receptive audience.”

Following the premiere of the The Home-Scale Forest Garden series on WPBS, the show will be released for broadcast and streaming on PBS stations nationwide later this spring.

Adirondack Apiary Management: Sustainable Practices for the Future

Written by Isabella Susino on 02/25/2026. Posted in Apiculture.

By Bruce Kilgore | Contributing Writer

Logo of the Northern Adirondack Beekeepers Association. Celebrating the Apibus Milliferis Dedicati spirit.

This month we consider our winter losses, formulating a plan to purchase replacements. It’s our annual wash, rinse, repeat cycle that drains wallets and enthusiasm for beekeeping. Package bees may seem like a simple solution; however, they come with challenges. First, a package is not a functioning colony. These are bees shaken into cages from multiple strong colonies and given a caged queen from a different source. Next, weather and long transport distances, plus rough handling, can be very stressful on the bees. Combine that with the fact you have no real contact with the producers.

I believe, as a beekeeping community, we can do better. The majority of beekeepers in our area are hobbyists with just a few hives. I often hear, “I don’t want to care for more than that.” We need to make a change in our thinking and see ourselves as part of a whole. We need to be looking at, and plan for, the future, not just the upcoming year. We need to redefine success and become sustainable, not only in our apiary, but as a region. Just as farmers save seeds to insure a future harvest, we can create functioning nucleus colonies to support ourselves and each other. Being part of a greater whole multiplies our odds of success. What if you could get your bees from a local and trusted source or be the trusted source?

How do we make these changes? First, lose the “go it alone” mentality. You are not alone. Become an active participant. Open yourself up to ask for or offer help. What might this look like? If you are a beekeeper with a few hives, and that is all you care to manage, you can support other beekeepers. What if you had a great survival rate coming out of winter and do not need to buy bees? Your queens will be primed to swarm this season. You could create and sell a nucleus to someone needing to replace losses. If you need replacements, you can commit to buying local nucleus colonies and queens. Other options you might consider is to offer swarm cells, swarms, splits, graft able larvae, or host mating nucleus colonies. I’m sure the list goes on. In return, you may find a growing community of supporters. This will create a positive feedback loop. Your success becomes community success.

Serving Clinton, Essex and Franklin counties, Northern Adirondack Beekeepers Association (NABA) is committed to a sustainable future for local beekeepers. Being part of our network of beekeepers opens possibilities, and a higher likelihood of success. Beginning in April, NABA will be offering hands-on workshops, such as building nucleus boxes and learning how to populate them.

The next meeting for Northern Adirondack Beekeepers Association (NABA) will be Saturday, March, 14^th at the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Clinton County office, 6064 Rte. 22, Plattsburgh, 10:00am – 12:00pm. This month we will be discussing strategies for sustainable beekeeping as an organization. Regular meetings continue the second Saturday of each month. If you would like to be added to our growing email list, please contact me. See information below.

Bruce Kilgore is a Cornell Certified Master Beekeeper with over fifteen years’ experience, President of Northern Adirondack Beekeepers Association (NABA), and a member of Eastern Apiculture Society (EAS) and Vermont Beekeepers Association (VBA). He lives in Saranac, New York. You may reach him at 518-578-2557 or email bkilgore7064@icloud.com

Children gather around desks to look at a paper that outlines different apple varieties.

Agriculture in the Classroom Grows Roots in Essex County

Written by Isabella Susino on 12/01/2025. Posted in Ag in the Classroom, Community Engagement.

Sometimes all it takes to start a revolution is a cherry tomato.

By Tim Rowland | Contributing Writer

As agricultural educators with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Essex County (CCE Essex) visit classrooms throughout the county, they’re aware that what may seem commonplace to an adult has the potential to wow a second grader — and get them to think about nutrition, our food supply and the value of local farmers.

So Ellie Hoffman, Local Food Educator, and Kate Graziano, Public Health Corps Fellow, are using a Cornell Cooperative Extension Harvest NY grant to spend time with classrooms in AuSable Valley, Boquet Valley and Ticonderoga. Through this “Rooted in Learning” grant, they are engaging elementary students in food-related discussions, tastings, farm visits and fun activities throughout the 2025-2026 school year.

“One of the main ideas behind this program is that there’s a disconnect between the food on your plate and where the food actually comes from,” Hoffman said. “So we’re trying to address that in different sorts of ways.”

Children are sitting on the floor, trying apple slices. — Apple taste testing with Ag in the Classroom.

The program patches in to national and state initiatives that feature a “harvest of the month,” an opportunity for kids to taste something that might be new to them. “And since CCE is so focused on local foods, we really try to bring those into Essex County schools specifically,” Hoffman said.

For example, taste tests featuring different varieties of apples relied on fruit from Northern Orchards in Peru. That opens up the possibility of a future field trip to the orchard so kids can actually see where those apples came from.

Each kid has a different level of knowledge about farms, food, and nutrition. There are a lot of foods many haven’t tried, like tomatoes. Other foods, like apples, they might know more about, so the program introduces kids to new varieties of apples and ways of thinking about their place in the food system. Some activities, such as churning butter, engage kids in preparing their own taste test.

“The butter lesson was a lot of fun, because a lot of the kids knew a little bit about the process of making butter, but they were so excited to see it happen in real time,” Graziano said. “I can tell that the kids are really excited to learn and cook with local food as much as they can. I have found it really interesting to see the different knowledge levels that the kids have going into the program, and I am looking forward to building on what they have learned in the past through similar experiences at home and at school.”

The lessons are 45 minutes once a month, but are designed so that teachers can use the lesson concepts to teach other subjects through the lens of agriculture. This can mean activities such as measuring the circumference of a pumpkin while studying geometry, writing about different parts of an apple during spelling and vocabulary lessons, and discussing local fruits and vegetables when learning about the life cycle of a plant.

Students are writing on a piece of paper, they are seated at their desks.

And while one class a month might not seem like much, it’s surprising how much of an impression even just one lesson can make. Part of that is because it’s so different from other things kids are learning in school. And that imprinting allows educators to build on the lessons in ensuing years. Making butter one year can lead to a discussion of how dairies work the next.

Hoffman says progress is measured by evaluations before and after the instructional year, but also by judging the students’ level of engagement. “When I’m teaching, I really try to tune in to how much the kids are paying attention and participating in the activities,” she said. “If I say something and they ask questions about it, that tells me I’m on the right track.”

Of course, kids being kids, they aren’t always thrilled about trying something new, especially a vegetable. No one forces them to try it, but they are encouraged to use other senses, like touching and smelling, to engage. If they smell it and it’s not too bad, they may end up taking a nibble. Then if they see that same food in the cafeteria they’re less likely to reject it out of hand.

And what’s really magical is when the kids can grow the food themselves. When they plant microgreens in the classroom, for instance, they learn about a new food, but also about what goes into its production. They’re delighted to see the seeds they plant unveil their stems and leaves – miniature produce that becomes a snack time harvest.

“I’ve seen the same reaction in an apple orchard,” Hoffman said. “You know that’s where apples come from, but I really think there is a sense of wonder from actually seeing it on the tree and picking it.”

Food, then, becomes not just something to eat, but something to experience and learn from. That makes it valuable, not just from a nutritional standpoint, but from being a part of the economy, a part of society and a part of the neighborhood.

“There’s a connection to the community, to the farmers, to the land, to the place, along with nature and the environment,” Hoffman said. “These connections all come together, and they’re not just theoretical. They’re something you can go out and see, and that’s really cool.”

You might say, revolutionary.

For more information on POP Club, and the Farm to School program, please contact Ellie Hoffman at emh257@cornell.edu or 518-962-4810 ext. 405.

Photographs provided by Ellie Hoffman.