Schools in the Spotlight Videos
The School Gardens of Hawai‘i Island are inspiring examples of hands-on education for sustainability. These programs develop the students' knowledge of food systems, nutritional health, and help expand academic learning and community engagement.
We hope you will enjoy the Videos of the School Gardens of Hawai‘i Island. Come on a virtual tour with us. Check back for additional films each month.
The Mala‘ai Culinary Garden at the Waimea Middle School
Other Videos
Hawai‘i Science Teachers Association 2012 Conference: Yasser Ansari
Citizen science advocate Yasser Ansari, "chief leaf" of Project Noah and keynote speaker at this past year's Hawai‘i Science Teachers Association conference talks about a way for students and teachers to harness technology for reconnecting with and cataloging the nature in their backyard or garden.
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Pam Warhurst: How we can eat our landscapes
August 2012
What should a community do with its unused land? Plant food, of course. With energy and humor, Pam Warhurst tells at the TEDSalon the story of how she and a growing team of volunteers came together to turn plots of unused land into communal vegetable gardens, and to change the narrative of food in their community. Pam Warhurst cofounded Incredible Edible, an initiative in Todmorden, England, dedicated to growing food locally by planting on unused land throughout the community.
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Taking Root
March 2012
The Vision of Wangari Maathai tells the story of Kenya’s Green Belt Movement, a grassroots organization encouraging rural women and families to plant trees in community groups, and follows Maathai, the movement’s founder and the first environmentalist and African woman to win the Nobel Prize. Maathai discovered her life's work by reconnecting with the rural women with whom she had grown up. They told her they were walking long distances for firewood, and that clean water was scarce. The soil was disappearing from their fields and their children were suffering from malnutrition. “Well, why not plant trees?” she suggested.
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Stephen Ritz: A teacher growing green in the South Bronx
February 2012
A whirlwind of energy and ideas, Stephen Ritz is a teacher in New York's tough South Bronx, where he and his kids grow lush gardens for food, greenery -- and jobs. Just try to keep up with this New York treasure as he spins through the many, many ways there are to grow hope in a neighborhood many have written off, or in your own.
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Roger Doiron: My subversive (garden) plot
December 2011
A vegetable garden can do more than save you money -- it can save the world. At TEDxDirigo Roger Doiron shows how gardens can re-localize our food and feed our growing population.
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Bioneers Conference 2011 - Karen Brown
Revolutionizing K-12 Education with Sustainability in Mind: "Smart by Nature" education has the potential to impart to our young the keys to sustainable living, revitalize our nation’s approach to schooling, and point the way to a hopeful future. This bold vision developed by today’s young people for the ecological challenges of the coming decades. Karen Brown, CEL Creative Director and an award-winning designer, explores how this vision is becoming reality in K-12 schools nationally.
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Ke Kula ‘O Ehunuikaimalino Hawaiian Immersion Charter School in Kona outlines their School Garden Program for the Children of the Kona Community.
September 29, 2011
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Presentations from the July 2011 School Garden Conference: "Planting Hope: Growing the Next Generation"
“Garden Based Learning: Year One, Moving to the Farm” by Gigi Cocquio and the Third Grade Teachers of Makaha Elementary School.
The Third Grade Team brought 120 students to the Farm next door all day every Wednesday during the 2010-2011 School Year. Here is their year-end evaluation.
"The Whole Child: Integrated Garden Curriculum, Healthy Lunch, and Lifelong Wellness" by Sarah Sullivan. Sarah Sullivan is the Program Coordinator for Abernethy Elementary’s award-winning School Kitchen Garden in Portland, Oregon. Abernethy serves as a model for the school garden movement, integrating benchmark-standard targeted garden curriculum and running Portland Public Schools test-kitchen for healthier, minimally-processed breakfast and lunches featuring locally sourced ingredients.
Karen Brown From: TEDxTalks
May 28, 2011
Karen Brown, creative director of the Center for Ecoliteracy, is an award-winning designer who has lectured throughout the U.S., Europe, and Japan on the human and environmental consequences of design. Her design has shaped the distinctive online and print publications of the Center for Ecoliteracy, including the Rethinking School Lunch Guide, Big Ideas, and educators' guides to the films Food, Inc., Nourish, and Connected. Her work has been featured in the Smithsonian Institution, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, The New York Times, Architectural Digest, Edutopia, and dozens of other publications as well as NBC's Today show.
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FoodCorps: Ask Not What Your Country Can Feed You; Ask What You Can Feed Your Country.
April 18, 2011
Co-Founder of the Brooklyn-based documentary production company Wicked Delicate and co-creator of the Peabody award winning film King Corn, Curt Ellis is now focused on launching the national AmeriCorps school garden program FoodCorps, which promises to combat childhood obesity while training a new generation of farmers.
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Sustainable Molokai Permaculture Video
March 26, 2011
Sustainable Molokai presents the Permaculture Research Institute USA Workshop Training Video from Summer 2011. This video highlights their adult permaculture initiative and some of the work that is currently happening to heal the degraded landscapes of Moloka‘i. A must see.
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Growing the Future: Farm to School in Hawaii
January 2011
Made by Nicole Lowen
Produced by a UH Mānoa graduate student of urban planning, this inspiring film encourages viewers to get involved in Farm to School programs in their communities. It provides an overview of what Farm to School programs are, why they are important, and explores some of the obstacles faced in broader implementation.
A Celebration of the Big Island (of Hawaii), on "Like Wow"
February, 2011
The newest and largest of the Hawaiian chain, the Big Island offers an active volcano, tropical plants, a coffee-growing region, Buddhist temples, astronomical observatories, and the "undeveloped" Waipi‘o Valley, as well as the usual tourist hotels. This celebratory video includes an interview with Nancy Redfeather of The Kohala Center, along with helicopter shots of lava flowing into the sea, local paintings of plants and of the volcano-goddess Pele, and walks through a crater and a botanical garden.
Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food
February 2010
Sharing powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, W. Va., TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food. Jamie Oliver is transforming the way we feed ourselves, and our children.
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