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Cornell Project Introduces Kids to Gardening
By Joanna Poncavage
Reprinted from The Morning Call, August 13, 2002

Community gardens in Allentown and Easton recently became part of a national, three-year project conducted by Cornell University to introduce city youngsters to gardening and to the learning opportunities gardens provide.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, this summer's Garden Mosaic program included sites from coast to coast, and involved more than 100 youngsters. Developed by Marianne Krasny, a professor in Cornell's natural resources department, the program also looks at how people of various ethnic backgrounds bring their cultural heritage into their gardens.

The community garden behind Casa Guadalupe in Allentown is presided over by people who attend the social service agency's senior center, including Ligia DelVilla, who works in the center's kitchen. Many of Casa Guadalupe's clients were born in Caribbean or South American countries; DelVilla is from Costa Rica.

Over several weeks in July, DelVilla and others from the center helped half a dozen neighborhood youngsters learn how tomatoes, garlic, peppers, basil, eggplants and cilantro in the garden become good-tasting food on the table. The youngsters, ages 11 to 14, also planted and tended their own small plots of vegetables.

In activities coordinated by Alyssa Simon of Emmaus, a Cornell sophomore and summer intern with the Lehigh County Cooperative Extension, youngsters ''mapped'' the garden, writing down what plants are grown and what they are used for.

One of the garden's crops, gandules, is an indispensable legume in Caribbean cooking. Exploring the surrounding neighborhood, the teens noted that gandules, also called pigeon peas, are sold in cans in nearby stores, at prices that vary widely. The smaller the store, the higher the price, they observed.

''We need more programs like this,'' says Guillermo Lopez, Casa Guadalupe director. ''Every kid needs healthy attention, and a chance to accomplish something. Like everything else, if you plant a seed and nurture it, it will grow.'' By spending time with their elders, he adds, young people tend to respect them a little more.

In Easton, children attending a summer camp at Church of God By Faith, where the congregation is mostly African-American, spent Tuesdays in the church's new vegetable garden or in activities designed around the garden. Church members rotate taking care of the garden, but the youngsters actually did a lot of the work this summer, says Simon.

Called Healthy Me for its emphasis on good health habits, the summer camp for children 6 through 11 is a collaboration with the Easton Area Neighborhood Center.

Garden-centered activities included weekly talks from community members and master gardeners. Children learned about good bugs and bad bugs, tested garden soil, and drew calendars of the garden year.

''They loved it,'' says Deborah Brown, camp director. ''It made them feel like the garden was theirs. No one was saying don't touch.' They couldn't wait to weed or water.''

Data collected by the young participants in the garden programs will be forwarded to an online data base and Web site for use by other educators. The Web site is under construction, but details and pictures of the program at Casa Guadalupe have already been posted.

''There are so many types of scientific knowledge that can be learned through community gardening,'' says Rebekah Doyle, Garden Mosaic project coordinator and Cornell Cooperative Extension associate. ''Students are not just sitting in a classroom studying botany and plants, they are learning through hands-on experience.''

Emelie Swackhamer, Penn State Cooperative Extension agent for Lehigh and Northampton counties, is a Garden Mosaic regional educator.