Greening the City

We've spoken in the past about the studies done by Frances Kuo and Andrea Faber-Taylor at the University of Illinois-Urbana that links better health and living conditions to urban greenspaces. Here's an article on the growing urban farm/garden movement and the multiple benefits these efforts provide.

At Brooklyn's Added Value, the conversation about nutrition starts in grade school. Almost every child in the local school district has visited the farm at least once through its "Farm to School" program. Added Value also runs a youth program that teaches high school kids food production and sales, media literacy, sustainable business development and community education and organizing.

"We're not growing farmers, we're trying to grow young people who are inspired by the world around them and who care and see themselves as empowered to take action in fixing things," says Caroline Loomis, Added Value's community education coordinator.

These programs produce dirty hands and engagement in the outdoors.