Reforming school food services improves children's health and increases their ability to learn — almost immediately. Adding lessons about what bodies need and what foods are best for us helps children develop life-long healthy eating habits.

For the most lasting impact on children's knowledge, behavior, and attitudes, combine hands-on experiences in gardens, instructional kitchens, and the lunchroom with classroom lessons integrating food, culture, health, and the environment. Education comes alive and becomes memorable in enriched school environments that enhance understanding of personal well-being and the natural world. Learning and teaching take on new life when students and teachers engage in firsthand inquiry about subjects that matter.

The Center for Ecoliteracy has been pleased to contribute to the School Lunch Initiative by helping educators enrich teaching in and out of the classroom and across the curriculum. The Center has provided resources, professional development, release time, and access to leading practitioners for BUSD teachers and school teams to: offer children hands-on experiences in gardens, instructional kitchens, and classrooms; help students gain a deeper understanding of how food grows, why some foods are more nutritious than others, how food plays a role in culture, and the ways in which food production and marketing affect environmental and personal health; and integrate curricula across subject areas while addressing state standards as well as the American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) Benchmarks for Science Literacy.

In particular, the Center for Ecoliteracy has contributed the following:

• A series of 2005–2006 staff development workshops, on campuses and at the Center, for BUSD administrators, faculty members, and garden and cooking instructors
• A matching CEL grant to BUSD to permit appointment of John Muir teacher Stephen Rutherford to a 2005–2006 position as teacher-in-residence to support the School Lunch Initiative
• Online and printed resources created by CEL that help teachers design lesson plans which address state standards matched to grade levels; the lessons include cross-disciplinary units using the school garden for teaching Grade 6 humanities and science and lessons with food-related content for teaching academic vocabulary and writing
• Introduction of "Linking Food, Culture, Health, and the Environment," a visual guide developed by the Center to illustrate how an enriched school environment can enhance student understanding of personal well-being and the natural world
• A five-day institute in summer 2006 entitled Linking Food, Culture, Health and the Environment, which was designed and hosted by CEL to provide training and technical assistance to teams of principals and teachers participating in the School Lunch Initiative
• A nutrition ecology seminar by one of the country's leading nutrition educators, facilitated and hosted by the Center for Ecoliteracy
• Facilitation of planning for increased use of the kitchen and garden classrooms to help support the teaching of "big ideas"
• Support for teams of teachers to use food as a basis for integrating curricula across subject matter through focus questions such as "What is food?" and "How did the acquisition of food play a role in the development of culture?"
• In-service training at the Center for Ecoliteracy with kitchen, garden, and science resource teachers, using the Teachers College Columbia University Linking Food and the Environment (LiFE) Curriculum Series
• Support in 2007 from CEL, along with a grant from the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, for intensive planning at two BUSD elementary schools, (1) to identify understandings students should acquire in a curriculum linking food, health, culture, and the environment, and (2) to identify criteria and assess schools' readiness to implement such a program
• Funding a summer 2007 workshop to help sixth- and seventh-grade teachers at King School design lessons incorporating state standards and CEL "Linking Food, Culture, Health, and the Environment" materials.

This engaging curriculum work is ongoing. I invite you to see for yourself how an integrated curriculum and enriched school environment can link reform in school meal programs with curricular innovations to improve student health, provide nutrition education, and increase children's understanding.

To tour the Linking Food, Culture, Health, and the Environment visual guide, select "Visual Guide" from the menu on the left. To see how 6th grade teachers at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School integrated these concepts into their program, select "5 Teaching Strategies".