Archive:

Reciprocity and Love in a Garden

By Rosemary Logan

Abstract: Finding love and reciprocity in the garden during challenging times by growing community-based learning experiences.

Planting More than Just Veggies: Student-Created Plans for a Sustainable Urban Farm

By Daniela Shebitz, Sergio Capozzi and Jackie Park Albaum

We present a non-formal learning experience between Kean University students and Groundwork Elizabeth that draws upon the ecologically renewing and civically engaging mission of renewable agriculture. Under increasing urbanization pressure in the New York Metropolitan Area, Groundwork Elizabeth emerged as a nonprofit organization dedicated to address challenges of food security and environmental degradation. During the spring of 2015, 17 students in the School of Environmental and Sustainability Sciences at Kean University created a plan for the design and management of the Liberty Hall Farm, which Groundwork Elizabeth manages. The capstone students worked on six projects that were proposed by the Groundwork Elizabeth: 1) permaculture design, 2) water management, 3) soil management, 4) a medicinal plant garden design and implementation, 5) an online farm records tracking system, and 6) education curricula for primary and secondary schools visiting the farm. A summary of these actions and the project outcomes are presented.

Organizing Alternative Food Futures in the Peripheries of the Industrial Food System

By Sam Grant

This article tells the story of two examples of local food systems initiatives involving the author, his students, and a diversity of community stakeholders. The focus is on an approach to local food systems work that builds local capacity and consciousness to create regenerative and transformative food systems. It briefly highlights a few of the many challenges that consistently show up in such work. The article encourages a transdisciplinary, intercultural, transformative approach to sustainability education and regenerative agriculture. As we face the complex socio-ecological challenges of the twenty-first century, an important opening emerges for sustainability educators and agroecologists to amplify the edges of socio-ecological consciousness and capacity and direct in sight and commitment toward action that best regenerates soil, ecosystems, communities and nourishes mutually sustainable futures.