Growing Up Organic Perth-Waterloo-Wellington
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| Winnipeg, MB | Perth-Waterloo-Wellington, ON | Ottawa, ON |
Salt Spring Island, BC | |
Project update December 13, 2010:
COG Takes a Healthy Bite Out of Climate Change
COG PWW Outreach Co-ordinator, Cathy Hansen, has picked up her farming tools and gone back to school. She is working with a team of volunteers in Erin to bring students in grades 5-7 the information about climate change and the role that food (and in particular their school lunch) contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.
Local volunteers Liz Armstrong and Heidi Mathews have put together a
four part series starting with basic stuff; what is a gas and how does it
produce warming. The classroom sessions go on to describe how the three main
greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, are emitted from
our food chain right from fertilizer and pesticide manufacturing to
transportation and the gases that emit from both ends of a ruminant animal.
Cathy takes the students on a virtual tour of an organic farm starting at the
compost pile. She uses slides to describe the ways that organic growers create
fertility and control weeds and pests while at the same time building the
soils carbon-capturing capacity. The kids also examine the issue of food miles
and in the end the connection is made between local and organic food as the
dynamic duo to Take The Biggest Bite Out of Climate Change.
The finale is a local, organic pizza lunch served with local, organic cider and fresh organic
carrot sticks. Many of the students ask if we will do it again. With help from
COG PWW, maybe we can.
Krista Long
Chapter Coordinator
Canadian Organic Growers,
Perth-Waterloo-Wellington
www.cogwaterloo.ca
Project update May 27, 2008:
COG PWW is just getting up and running with it's second year of the Growing Up Organic (GUO) project. We have hired two outreach workers to continue contacting local farmers, daycares and other institutions in Wellington and Perth counties. As well, we have a new Administration and Marketing Coordinator who is supporting the GUO project along with the chapter as a whole.
In year one we had an exciting response to the project with 10 daycare locations and 25 local farms interested in participating in the program. It soon became apparent that we were faced with some small challenges - storage and distribution of food! Much of the energy of year one was spent helping a group of 15 area farmers develop the Local Organic Food Team Co-op (LOFT). Our goal is to begin supplying many of the interested daycares through this co-op. Stay tuned! For more information about the cooperative, click here.
We will also be delivering workshops on transition to organic production with our local partners, the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario (EFAO) and Everdale Organic Farm and Environmental Learning Centre. Stay tuned for those details as well.
Contact information:
Krista Long , Chapter Coordinator
E-mail:
Tel.: (226) 251-3012
Sponsors:
This project was funded in part by:
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