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Film topics varied, and students, ages 14 to 17, are working on individual projects. Project advisor Jamie Harper leads the teenagers as they study what they eat and where it comes from — two issues raised during the “Localvores” segment of the festival held Jan. 27 at Winona State University.
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Jamie Harper, a Riverway Learning Community project coordinator, speaks with students, from left, Gracie Stoltman, 17, Patrick Brown, 14, and Douglas Rasmussen, 17, about the Frozen River Film Festival Thursday at the school in Minnesota City. The students were part of a group from Riverway who are incorporating ideas from the festival into their curriculum.
(Photo by Melissa Carlo/Winona Daily News) |
Festivalgoers viewed two films that discussed the benefits of organic farming, which excludes the use of things like pesticides and growth hormones, but promoted buying locally grown foods. Harper and students watched the films and followed a panel discussion of local organic farmers. Now they plan on focusing their individual projects on the effects of their current eating habits, as well as possible alternatives.
“Locally grown, organic food just seems more natural to me,” said student Douglas Rasmunssen. “You just eat what you have, where you are.”
The concept of taking community issues and creating individual learning programs for students isn’t unique to Riverway, though it’s not necessarily mainstream either. The concept allows students to study what interests them in a community-based context.
Concern about what students eat at Riverway goes beyond the classroom. Helped by a federal grant to improve charter schools, Riverway remodeled its kitchen for this school year, so it could cook meals for the students. Previously, food was prepared outside of the school, a situation no one at Riverway wanted.
Harper and others at the school said they are hoping to work out deals with local organic farmers so they can control not only how their food is prepared, but who grows it and what is, or more importantly isn’t, put in, on, or under it. Harper also wants to get students involved in growing the food.
“Getting the kids out in the dirt, planting their food themselves, that’s how you learn about what your eating and how it grows,” said Harper.
Knowing exactly what they are eating and where the food is coming from has shown to be even more important recently, with the announcement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that it would be putting a hold on all meat products delivered by the Westland-Hallmark Meat Co., after a video was released of workers abusing cows in a California slaughterhouse.
The Rochester School District received a shipment of meat from the company last year, though Riverway and the Winona Area Public School District both say they receive their beef from other sources.
The school also received a grant to renovate their greenhouse, in hopes of making it permanent, and potentially growing some of their own food themselves.
“The closer things are to you, the better you can see how they affect the community and environment,” said Stephen Fleet, one of Harper’s students.
