community garden outreach (spring 2011)

Community Garden Outreach
Environmental Studies 145
Fridays 11:45 am – 3:25 pm
Hayes Healy Formal Lounge

Professor Melinda Stone
Office: Kalmanovitz 120
Office Hours: Wed 10 – 12 & by appointment
Contact: stone [ at ] usfca [ dot ] edu / 422-5755

Professor David Silver
Office: Kalmanovitz 141
Office Hours: Tues & Thurs 3 – 4 pm & by appointment
Contact: [ at ] usfca [ dot ] edu

Community Garden Outreach introduces students to environmental, cultural, social, political, and philosophical issues that circulate through and around food production, preparation, and distribution. Through readings, guests, and class discussions, students will learn about sustainable and unsustainable systems of food production. Through field trips, homestead workshops, and our on-campus farmstand, students will engage directly with various sustainable food practices. This service-learning course is offered in tandem with Justin Valone’s Urban Ag II and both are part of USF’s Garden Project living learning community.

Learning Goals:
1. To continue managing – effectively and collaboratively – the campus farmstand;
2. To develop advanced skills in preparing, preserving, and distributing food; and
3. Through field trips to San Francisco/Bay Area urban farms and gardens, to explore first-hand some of challenges and opportunities in urban agriculture.


Course Schedule:
Friday, January 28
Re-introductions

Friday, February 4
First Friday Farmstand

Friday, February 11
Field trip to Little City Gardens
Prior to field trip, read Chloe Roth, Little City Gardens makes a go of urban agriculture in San Francisco, SFGate, April 29, 2010; and Robert Selna, Urban agriculture: S.F. considers allowing sales, SFGate, December 23, 2010.

Friday, February 18
Homestead Workshop: Making Herbal salves, oils, teas and tinctures with Sarah Duscoe
Prior to homestead workshop, read: Sarah Holmes, Western Herbalism, September 11, 2000; Matthew Wood, The Three Basic Principles of Traditional Western Herbalism; and Jane E. Brody, Babies Know: A Little Dirt Is Good for You, New York Times, January 26, 2009.

Friday, February 25
Garden Guests: Daniel Tucker and Anne Hamersky
Read selected chapters from Amy Franceschini and Daniel Tucker’s Farm Together Now: A portrait of people, places and ideas for a new food movement (2010).

Friday, March 4
First Friday Farmstand

Friday, March 11
Field trip to UCSC Farm
Prior to field trip, read Patricia Allen and Martha Brown, Sustainable Agriculture at UC Santa Cruz, CASFS.

Friday, March 18
SPRING BREAK

Friday, March 25
Homestead Workshop: Foraging with Justin Valone
Readings TBD.

Friday, April 1
First Friday Farmstand

Friday, April 8
Garden Guest: Heather Hoag
Readings TBD.

Friday, April 15
Field trip to Garden for the Environment
Read: Can City Farmers Make a Living? Activist Eli Zigas on the Challenges of Urban Agriculture, Good, January 11, 2011.

Friday, April 22
Good Friday: No class.

Friday, April 29
Garden Guest: Marco Perez Navarrete, Permaculture Institute of El Salvador
Read selections from Raj Patel, Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System (Melville House, 2008).

Friday, May 6
First Friday Farmstand

This class has no final.


Course Grading:
Weekly Reflections - 40%
Farmstand Participation - 40%
Classroom Participation - 20%

Rules:
1. No late work accepted.
2. In class, on field trips, and during farm stand, no drinking out of non-reusable containers.