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"What is your definition of success?" Our goal in educating the future leaders of our country is to create compassionate citizens who will lead by example. Our focus is in educating students to build healthy relationships and healthy interconnected communities. By using nature as our model we see that in any healthy or sustainable community in nature each component supports the other components in the system. All components give back more than they take from the whole. Simply put, this means our students must learn to be selfless instead of selfish which will be expressed by nurturing and cultivating the best in each-other. As we move away from the competitive mentality and towards the compassionate community building mentality of "We" instead of "Me", we will be training students to create sustainable interrelationships between each of the components in their lives. We believe that children learning to compassionately care for one another and their habitat around them, is the first step in realizing a regenerative culture and world community. Our curriculum uses the garden as a metaphor to learn to recognize and create compassion, interconnectedness and consciouses at the students core. Examples of Greenleaf Gardens Inc. Indoor/Outdoor Activities:
-How do we model our own communities and actions to mimic the sustainable ---communities found in nature? - What is a healthy system- A community that has no waste. - All elements in a healthy system are interdependent. -How economic, environmental and social well being are presently limited. - The role of students creating a sustainable culture as they envision it.
-What
is global warming? -How does Agriculture and food choices impact the planet? -Students compare Apples from the cafeteria with local apples grown in Upstate NY. Sample for taste -What
is the individual’s responsibility?
-Students define the elements that comprise the soil and the role it plays in nature. -Discuss human impact on the soil system (erosion, removal of leaves, compaction) -How do these actions affect the soil community as well as our community?
-How composting works (process and politics) -Cafeteria composting -Vermicomposting
-Students learn about our current food system -Transformation of materials -Inputs and outputs and the balance
-The journey of the tomato/strawberry/Apple (industrial v. local) -Producers and consumer (how can we all become producers and consumers)
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