Students at VASA Elementary learn the value of self grown herbs and vegetables! Pictured below fourth graders are planting lavender.

If you'd like to incorporate gardening in your classroom, check out the Fresno County Master Gardener Resource Guide, or contact your UC CalFresh Program Specialist.

Recently we had the opportunity to host a field trip for Yokomi elementary 4th graders at the UCCE Master Gardeners' demonstration garden, the Garden of the Sun.

The students were delighted to learn about MyPlate, hydration, tomato plants, physical activity, edible plant parts, healthy snacks and more! 

Students got to taste cucumber-mint and lemon-lime water. The cucumber mint was voted the best!

Did we mention they loved the flavored water? It's the perfect alternative to sugary beverages.

After getting some tips on how to care for it, every child got to take their very own tomato plant home!

Can you find the root? Rodrigo and his friend could! Students learned to identify roots, stems, flowers, seeds, fruit and leaves.

Taste testing celery and other edible plant parts. The verdict? delicious!

The tour of the Children's Garden was fantastic! The UCCE Master Gardeners know their stuff!

Human sundial in the Children's Garden.

MyPlate relay? Challenge accepted! These two students are racing to place their Dairy foods into the blue basket.

Phoebe Copp with the CA Dairy Council taught kids the importance of a balanced diet. She also brought milk mustache stickers for all of the students. It was too fun!

Can you spot the milk mustache?

These few pictures give you a glimpse into the fantastic, hands-on experience students had learning about nutrition. It was a great day for us all!

Special thanks to Rose Pipkin and the MG Youth Garden Committee, as well as Phoebe Copp with the CA Dairy Council for helping host the field trip!

UC CalFresh had the opportunity to participate in the UCCE Master Gardeners' Taste of the Harvest event on Saturday, September 7^th, 2013, and it was great!   The event was held at their beautiful garden located on 1750 N. Winery, here in Fresno. 

UC CalFresh was thrilled to attend! We provided information on our Master Extender Education Team (MEET) program.  The MEET program allows individuals interested in our program to be trained on our USDA research-based curriculum to teach nutrition.

At Taste of the Harvest, the Master Gardeners offered free seminars and tomato tasting.  There were also garden and craft booths, a fruit stand from local farms and a garden shop.

Garden of the Sun tomato varieties on display

Aren't these tomatoes beautiful?

Each year we invite Master Gardeners into classrooms to teach children how to grow their own foods. They also work with parents so the whole family can get involved!

Master Gardeners at Calwa Elementary

Take advantage of the resources available to you from the Fresno County Master Gardeners!

Their website is full of information, and they offer tons of classes. Some are free, others have a minimal cost. For information on their classes and future events, click here.

In our new series "educator reflections" you'll periodically hear first hand experiences from UC CalFresh staff working in Fresno County. Our first reflection comes from Program Educator, Brittanny Zweigle.

This summer I had the opportunity to join with Elizabeth Villalobos in serving Ahwahnee Middle School's deaf and hard of hearing students, taught by Carolee Clayton and Lisa Catron.  These two teachers worked with UC CalFresh throughout the school year and are dedicated to nutrition education by continuing participation during the summer.   

Liz and I taught one lesson a week over four weeks with our goal being to boost the students’ awareness of healthy options.  Using lessons from the EatFit curriculum we focused on the importance of making healthy choices to keep our bodies strong. 

We challenged the students to set goals by focusing on a single behavior such as; eating more fruits and vegetables, increasing their physical activity, decreasing their sugar consumption or limiting the amount of television they watch. 

We checked in on the students’ goals every week, to see what changes they had made.  A few had increased their physical activity while others signed that it was difficult to make those changes.

The schedule was packed with multiple lesson topics, and we only had 4 weeks to fit it all in! 

Week 1: Understanding our Students’ Knowledge

An EatFit pre-test helped us to gauge what our students knew about making healthy choices.  We reviewed MyPlate, the importance of vitamins and minerals and conducted a taste test of coconut water.

Week 2: "Get Moving" and Reading a Food Label

We hit the ground running learning the importance of physical activity (PA). The students got moving with three forms of exercise: aerobic, anaerobic, and stretching. An Instant Recess video was also a hit! 

Students learn about label reading.

Following our PA we examined how to read a food label, and tasted baked snap peas and golden raisins.

Week 3: Fast Food and Sugar-Sweetened Beverages

Healthier options can be difficult to choose when at a fast food restaurant, but learning how to make those choices can be fun when playing tic, tac, toe!  

After discussing how to choose healthy options at fast food restaurants, we learned about the number of teaspoons of sugar that one sweetened beverage can hold.  We chewed over all the information by tasting kiwi and carrots.

Week 4: Master Gardeners

Rose Pipkin, Master Gardener

We concluded the series with our own Master Gardeners from UCCE.  The students learned that everything comes from a seed, how various foods produce seeds, and had the opportunity to plant their own purple green beans to take home. We ended the session with a review of everything taught the past weeks, and a final tasting of a fruit parfait.

Students learned all about seeds!

Not knowing American Sign Language (ASL), could have created a communication barrier. With the help of our remarkable teachers and interpreter, Taylor Clark, we were able to connect with the students. 

We used pictures and items for the students to touch and see, as well as a video to deliver our lessons.  The food tastings allowed the students to see, smell, and taste.  Working with the deaf and hard of hearing students at Ahwahnee Middle School was such an enjoyable experience! 

I learned so much from them, and would love to become fluent in ASL! Thank you Carolee Clayton, Lisa Catron, and Taylor Clark for your dedication to nutrition education and support of our program.