Class Curriculum for Honey from the Rock 2007

Double Rock Community Garden / Bret Harte
Honey from the Rock

Instructors: Jacqueline Williams + Rene LaMar
E-mail: ReneLaMar@hotmail.com
Blog: http://honey4rmtheroc.blogspot.com

Class Description

Honey from the Rock is to promote a better understanding of the relationship between nature and children. The main objective is to teach better eating habits by growing our own food in an outdoor classroom setting. The food we eat affects the way we grow, we think and the way we learn.

Through a series of inoculating the soil, preparing compost tea, building beds and observing the cycles of nature we will be looking at the relationship between our food and our earth and how this affects us. We will also, germinate seeds and observe and tend its evolution. We will look at Permaculture as it applies to nature. Permaculture mimics the natural ecosystems that we live with; everything is dependant upon each other.

Students will be broken up into groups of five to work towards a final project that applies Permaculture. Permaculture can be defined as working within a small amount of space that has a diversity of foods. Permaculture looks at how Kerala Indians grew their food. Permaculture applies older principles of growing food with modern technology. The research process will develop a keen understanding for tracking the dynamics of space and food.

After deploying their research process, students will develop ways of intervening in their chosen site, using what they have learned from their observations to create a Permaculture strategy. Shovels, rakes, hoes, trowels will be the some of among many tools needed to cultivate the Permaculture site. This curriculum is subject to change.