In today’s society, few students have grown fruits and vegetables. When asked to identify where fruits and vegetables come from, too many students say “the grocery store,” without giving more thought as to where they really come from.

Over the last 20-plus years, many of our public schools have incorporated edible learning gardens as a place for students to learn subjects that encompass several academic disciplines.  In the case of learning gardens, this includes science, math, health, ecology, history, nutrition, social science, and the visual arts.

Leaving the classroom, digging in the soil, observing the growing seasons, harvesting crops and eating the “fruits” of their labors has provided students with a unique learning environment. The great benefit of this learning environment, according to CDC research, is a clear and strong connection of the link between school gardens and improved behavioral and physical health, and academic achievement.

In several of our West Orange Public Elementary Schools, students are learning in outside environments, planting, growing, harvesting and eating fruits and vegetables. They are going home and sharing their experiences and their new taste preferences, becoming “change agents” to positively influence family decisions on healthy foods to purchase and eat, and possibly grow.

Additional personal growth includes:

• Increased ability to identify fruits and vegetables;
• Willingness to taste vegetables grown in the garden;
• Willingness to try vegetables in the school lunch; and
• Increased knowledge of and attitudes towards eating fruits and vegetables.

Students involved in the edible learning gardens program enjoy the fascination of watching a seed become a plant; seeing a plant flower prior to becoming a fruit; finding out how some vegetables grow underground; learning that some insects are helpful while others are harmful to plants; and seeing and learning how our weather can ruin a crop through lack of rain or an unexpected cold spell.