Our kitchen infrastructure and systems directly inform how we run our classes. In the
Edible Schoolyard kitchen, our space has been specifically designed to enable students to
operate independently and create rich opportunities for exploratory learning.
The Edible Schoolyard kitchen teachers provide these tasting ballots as a way to help students think creatively about their food experiences and preferences.
In every class we start the small-group component with a check-in. This check-in serves to
remind all students, teachers, and volunteers of each other's’ names, and to give everyone
an opportunity to speak and listen to one another.
This resource provides a set of open-ended questions intended to spur conversation and reflective thinking among students. At the Edible Schoolyard Berkeley, these questions are hand-written on index cards and are used in the kitchen classroom to encourage communication around the table.
Our recipes (with the exception of baking) are designed to be flexible in order to maximize
seasonality and accommodate student input. Rather than create an entire recipe from start
to finish, we often take an existing recipe and adapt it to fit our needs.
In every kitchen class there is a process of dividing up the work to be done between students. This process can set the tone for the remainder of the class so it is important to make sure that students feel heard and respected through the process.
A typical kitchen class at the Edible Schoolyard Berkeley is 86 minutes (1 hour and 26 minutes) and is divided into three main parts: the Chef Meeting, At the Table, and Closing Circle.
Fruit and vegetable consumption has grown significantly in the past two decades as the health benefits of these crops have been emphasized. Unfortunately, the incidence of food borne illnesses has also increased.
