The Whittier College & La Serna High School Garden Collaboration

10/31/2013

Need a refresher on composting? We got you covered.
http://indianapublicmedia.org/eartheats/composting-101-tips-tricks-creating-healthy-heap/

Why does the compost pile smell? How often do I turn it? How do I know it's garden-ready? This composting primer is handy for beginners and experts alike.

10/25/2013

We are part of a bigger movement.

http://www.babble.com/babble-voices/grow-your-own/how-gardens-are-transforming-american-schools/increase-kids-fruit-and-vegetable-consumption/

10/25/2013

As we have learned, gardens cannot only be a place of sustenance but also a learning laboratory. Do not miss out on the opportunity to engage your ELL students in the garden and help build their vocabulary.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/vocabulary-instruction-teaching-tips-rebecca-alber?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=blog-vocab-tips-repost

Every Monday, my seventh grade English teacher would have us copy a list of 25 words she'd written on the board. We'd then look up the dictionary definitions and copy those down. For homework, we'd re

10/17/2013

Eating seasonal foods is one step you can take towards a sustainable diet. Here's an infographic that breaks it down for you.

http://chasingdelicious.com/kitchen-101-produce/

The Produce posters are now available for purchase at The Sweet Tooth Paper Goods Company. Ten percent of Kitchen 101 poster sale profits will go towards supporting education in the culinary arts.

10/15/2013

Take out a pen and piece of paper! Here are 3 easy rules for growing food in cold weather.
http://modernfarmer.com/2013/10/endless-summer-farm-greenhouse/

Modern Farmer talks to Jack Algiere, Four Season Farm Director at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in upstate New York, about cold-weather crops.

10/14/2013

Mark Keppel High School is among many schools who have adopted an open-access policy for college-level Advanced Placement (AP) courses, where spots for the classes are distributed among students based on a computer lottery.

Supporters argue "equal access as an educational right". While critics claim this new open-access process is "pushing too many unprepared students into AP classes", leading to "higher exam failure rates over the last decade and a persistent achievement gap among races".

Can you think of any benefits or disadvantages to the open-access policy for AP courses?

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-ap-classes-20131007,0,538955.story?page=1

Alex Wong, a junior at Mark Keppel High School in Alhambra, is working hard for admission to an elite college. His resume boasts nearly straight A's in rigorous classes, a summer program experience at Stanford University , an Eagle Scout project, club soccer, school choir.

10/08/2013

“The question, ‘Do students get a better education in charter schools?’ is complicated,” -Ross Danis, President and CEO of Newark Trust for Education

"..a great school is a great school regardless of its classification."

http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/04/25/charter-schools-are-they-better-public-schools?cmpid=wfs-fb

New data shows just how well kids are doing in many of the nation’s charter schools.

10/08/2013

10/04/2013

Happy Belated National Kale Day!

Did you know 1 cup of chopped kale has 134% of your recommended daily intake of vitamin C, while a medium orange has 113% of the daily C requirement?

Here are some interesting facts about one of the veggies we will be planting this semester.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/30/kale-facts-nutrition-info_n_3671210.html

Our love of kale is no secret. But even though it's the hottest vegetable on the scene, many of its more healthful attributes remain a mystery to the general public.

10/02/2013

Save money. Eat healthier. It's easy as 1,2,3..
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/20/grow-vegeables-food-scraps_n_2909396.html =2238363

We all have our ways of pinching pennies. For some of us, it's at the grocery store.

10/01/2013

"Rigged Game" by David Garity. This young poet expresses what he believes is wrong with our current ESL education system in his performance at the 2013 National Poetry Slam competition.

http://www.upworthy.com/teaching-children-in-this-awful-way-is-like-helping-a-person-who-is-on-fire-by-drowning-them

Let's have a frank discussion about how we are currently making it impossible for kids to learn, shall we?

10/01/2013