Look How They Grow

Hidden away in your kitchen is a worn recipe card. This tried-and-true dish is your family’s culinary claim to fame. And Sybil Fix, founder of Terra Summer camp, sees this heirloom as a dynamic opportunity for introducing children (ages 11 to 14) to the social and ecological issues related to food. Ever wonder how much your grandmother paid for the ingredients? In what country did the spices originate?

Answering those questions and more is just one of many exercises at Terra Summer. Each day of the four-week session begins with the kids planting and caring for crops and harvesting food on the farm campus in Mills River. In the afternoon, they take what they learned into the kitchen-classroom, where they apply it to a host of subjects from chemistry to world history while cooking. Sustainability is the underlying message of all the experiences, which include field trips to places such as landfills to highlight the impact of waste. The children also learn about the environmental costs of raising animals for meat.

Fix hopes to impart that “choices, even at this age, make a difference.” After the session, that family recipe will hold an even deeper meaning that kids can take from the kitchen out into the world.

Register
Next session: July 19-Aug. 13
Terra Summer
(828) 782-7842
www.terrasummer.org