Giving Compass' Take:

• Kimbal Musk's nonprofit organization, The Kitchen Community, is now called Big Green, and is providing learning garden classrooms to underserved schools across the United States. 

• What is the importance of having a garden education when you are young? Why will more children benefit from learning about the value of nutrition?

• Read about project-based learning curriculums centered around gardens. 

Kimbal Musk’s nonprofit organization, The Kitchen Community (TKC), expanded into a new, national nonprofit called Big Green, to build hundreds of outdoor Learning Garden classrooms across America. Learning Gardens teach children an understanding of food, healthy eating, and garden skills through experiential learning and garden-based education that tie into existing school curriculum, such as math, science, and literacy.

I am focusing, first, on impacting high-need and underserved students because sadly, these communities bear the brunt of obesity-related diseases. Eventually, we will reach every kid in all 100,000 schools in America because every child deserves to thrive in healthy environments that connect them to real food.

TKC has built Learning Garden classrooms in hundreds of underserved schools in six U.S. cities, reaching more than 100,000 students every day.

Big Green’s entrance into new cities across America will help stimulate new, local jobs, and a growing network of teachers, parents, and communities passionate about growing and eating real food.

Their nutrition curriculum, Garden Bites, developed in partnership with nonprofit Common Threads, is accompanied with teacher training to further support teachers and students in using Learning Gardens cooperatively and respectfully.

Read the full article on learning gardens by Eva Perroni at Food Tank.