I teach at an innovative and award-winning, K-12 dual-language public charter school in Delaware with a diverse school student population. Fifty percent of my students are minorities and low-income. All of our students study the Greek language and global studies. Our Title I school is located on the outskirts of Wilmington. I truly love working at a diverse school with a focus on global citizenship! I teach Food Studies, African-American history, Advanced Placement Human Geography, and US History to tenth to twelfth-grade students. I am also the K-12th grade garden coordinator, advisor of the Girls Grow Greens club, and one of the leaders of the Green Team on campus.
Our school is one of only a few schools in Delaware and in the country to receive the eco-schools USA Green Flag award for excellence in environmental action and learning.
Recently, our school was honored to be selected as a 2020 U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon School! Our Green Team has worked incredibly hard to implement several major projects to educate our students about how to be environmental stewards of the planet. For example, we now have a school vegetable garden with 34 raised beds, chickens, and goats.
My Project
Food Studies is an innovative and interdisciplinary semester-long course that inspires students to become food citizens, individuals who understand that their food choices have a meaningful impact on personal, environmental, and community health. The curriculum's interactive lessons explore food's relationship to culture, the environment, and power, integrating science, ELA, and social studies learning. We will take a multi-faceted approach to learn about food through exposure to excellent writing about food, agriculture, and environmental sustainability; cooking labs that will help us learn through the preparation and tasting of food, and interactions with experts like farmers and other food producers through field trips to local institutions and farms.
The course has many objectives for participants:
*To understand food as a reflection of a society's values and priorities.
*To understand the importance of food as a foundation for individual, community, and environmental wellbeing.
*To understand food as an avenue to empowerment, citizenship, and social justice.
The reading, analysis, discussion, writing, and preparation and enjoyment of food that takes place through the course provides the knowledge and experiences for participants to achieve these goals.
I am requesting a Qball, a throwable microphone for our Food Studies class. Due to the pandemic and 2+ years of online learning, many of my students struggle with communicating their ideas with their peers. Additionally, due to the Omicron variant, my students have to socially distance again. Having this portable communication tool in the classroom will promote a positive classroom environment, encourage movement, and inspire students to participate in whole-group discussions about food, culture, and the environment.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Tracy and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.