Welcome to the Green Animals Edible Schoolyard Project! Based at
Green Animals, a Preservation Society of Newport County property in
Portsmouth, RI, we are creating a sustainable learning environment based
on the vision of Alice Waters, founder of the Edible Schoolyard Project. The Edible Schoolyard Project at Green Animals has been made possible by a planning grant from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities.
The Green Animals Edible Schoolyard (GA ESY) project’s goal is to
build and share a curriculum for students in kindergarten through highschool that focuses on environmental sustainability and connecting
various subjects to the garden. The Edible Schoolyard Project at Green
Animals, thanks to the generous funding by the Rhode Island Council for
Humanities, has partnered with teachers and administrators from
Aquidneck Island to build a Social Sciences curriculum using the
resources at Green Animals. We will be a site for future field trips and
hope to begin after school programming. The GA ESY is committed to the
integration of the links between school curriculum and healthy food
choices, along with the care of our environment.
An important aspect of our project is linking healthy food choices
with school curriculum and cultural heritage. For example, when classes
come to Green Animals, they will not only learn garden and classroom
skills, they will learn about how certain crops and plants are part of
history. What we grow, eat and what we use to clothe ourselves is
connected with our collective heritage, and it is our goal to use
sustainability as the key to opening up these kinds of classroom
discussions.
The Green Animals Edible Schoolyard Project is well equipped to
address and educate the community about integrated school curriculum
that links healthy food choices with the care of our environment and the
enrichment of our children.
The project’s mission is to provide the community with an
intersection between healthy eating, sustainability, and education
surrounding nutrition and agriculture.