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Growing seed-to-table food systems literacy since 2005

The Princeton School Gardens Cooperative is a 501(c)3 that fosters equitable garden- and food-based education in the classroom, cafeteria and community. The PSGC uses local and seasonal foods to connect students to their own bodies, to each other, to their families and communities, to curriculum, and to the world – and the future – we share.

Food Systems Literacy Programs & Projects

Food Systems Literacy coordinator
portrait of FSLC Tomia MacQueen in her edible gardens
A collaboration between Princeton Public Schools (PPS) and Princeton School Gardens Cooperative (501c3) has produced a pilot program to optimize untapped campus resources for illustrating and amplifying curriculum. The one-year pilot began on Monday, April 17, with PPS welcoming the program’s coordinator, Tomia MacQueen.  She will work behind the scenes, engaging faculty, staff, facilities, and administration in using interacting school food, water (fall and flow), and land systems on PPS campuses as hands-on, five-senses tools to illustrate and amplify curriculum and to nurture the wellbeing of the diverse student body. Read more about the work of the Food Systems Literacy coordinator here.
carrots vocabulary words
Garden State on Your Plate: Interdisciplinary exploration of place, palate, planet

The Garden State on Your Plate program brings chefs and farmers into cafeterias at lunchtime to serve  samples of simply prepared and seasonal produce. For the February schedule of sweet potato tastings at each of the district’s elementary schools and the middle school, click here.

From campus lands to classrooms to cafeterias, this program is the leading edge of food systems literacy efforts at Princeton Public Schools. Garden State on Your Plate is easily adapted to K12 schools across the region.

Outdoors, on campus lands, this interdisciplinary program, in partnership with the district’s facilities and groundskeeping department, spans study of interacting natural systems required for all life. It uses as its tools a seasonal produce item – nuts, seeds, fruits, vegetables, berries, legumes, beans – for each month of the school year.

Edible Campus educators at each of the district’s six campuses coordinate the planting, tending and harvesting of the items through the growing season, working alongside faculty members who bring students onto campus lands for relevant research and for respite.

Indoors, posters featuring the item are displayed for the month in the halls and in the cafeterias and in the libraries of each of the district’s six schools. An online newsletter recaps the posters and offers recipes and growing tips.  

In partnership with Metz Culinary Management, each of the district’s cafeterias includes the spotlighted food on the lunch line on Thursdays, with globally-based recipes and flavorings, including Pan-Asian, African diaspora, Latino-Hispanic, and Indian/Middle Eastern. These foods make direct links to:
• curriculum, including the NJ Climate Change Education mandate;
• diverse cultures within the student population;
• the origins of the food and its pathways to the Garden State;
• current events; and,
• campus lands, each school’s Edible Gardens, and the New Jersey food shed.

The program also aims to build community of the table and increase quality of the school food offerings by everyday incorporation of these produce items. Produce items for the remainder of the school year:
February – sweet potatoes
March – carrots
April – spinach
May – lettuce
June – peas

March Garden State on Your Plate:
Carrots weekly at PPS cafeterias!
Tuesday, 3/5 •Asian Chicken Stir Fry w/ Rice
• Four-way Mixed Vegetables
Week of 3/11 NA
Week of 3/18NA
Week of 3/25NA
Week of 4/1SPINACH!
Get recipes for carrots & other GSOYP produce items here

Edible Gardens & Environment
dirt on the shovel
Edible Gardens at each of the schools connect students to the natural systems and ecosystems (including worms and bugs) that are prerequisites to all life on Earth. Dr. Joy Barnes-Johnson, Science Supervisor grades 6-12, is our Edible Gardens liaison.
Hands-on Gardening & Cooking
Measuring up
PPS Cooks+Gardens is our hands-on seed-to-table program for middle- and high-schoolers at PPS Teaching Kitchens. Dr. Joy Barnes-Johnson, Science Supervisor grades 6-12, is our liaison and high-school coordinator for PPS Cooks+Gardens, working with Janet Gaudino, PMS science teacher and in partnership with the PMS Food Science Wellness teacher. 
PHS+PMS: Planting a Food Forest
Plans are under way to connect the campus of Princeton High School to Princeton Middle School with an eight-layer food forest. Above is a possible pathway, an adaptation of the “emerald necklace” linear system of linking parks and parkways designed by Frederick Law Olmsted to connect the Boston Common. To learn more about food forests, and one just an hour or so away in Philadelphia, click here.
What’s in Season in the Garden State 
Plans are under way to connect the campus of Princeton High School with Princeton Middle School with an eight-layer food forest. Above is a possible pathway, an adaptation of the “emerald necklace” linear system of linking parks and parkways designed by Frederick Law Olmsted to connect the Boston Common. To learn more about food forests, and one just an hour or so away in Philadelphia, click here.