National Geographic Green Guide
February 19, 2009

By Solvie Karlstrom
Teaching Greener Kids

At The College School last year, a private school in Saint Louis, first and second graders grew organic basil in the schools new greenhouse. After the harvest, the farmers made their own pesto and fresh pasta—using all local ingredients except for the olive oil and parmesan—and documented the whole experience in a 30-page book titled Beautiful and Yummy.

“What is special about making your own pesto and pasta?” write second graders Molly and Olivia. “It is not processed. It is not wrapped in a bag. Machines did not make it. Plus it is not sitting in a grocery store for a while. It just tastes better when you grow it yourself.”

The College School pasta project is just one example of a lesson plan that effectively demonstrates “biophilia, ” the concept that human identity and personal fulfillment are directly influenced by the individual’s relationship to nature. In The Biophilia Hypothesis, Stephen R. Kellert writes that “a degraded relationship to nature increases the likelihood of a diminished material, social, and psychological existence.”

Read More at: http://www.thegreenguide.com/