Today’s lesson: How the dirt made my lunch

Giving kids the big picture in urban agriculture and ecology

By Meagan M. Taylor

As she was getting her students ready for their upcoming visit to a farm, the teacher asked them to name something they ate for lunch that day.

A boy raised his hand. “Corn chips,” he answered.

“And where did your corn chips come from?” the teacher asked.

“The factory,” the child responded.

She steered him, “Where were they before they got to the factory?”

He shrugged, “Nowhere. They just come from the factory.”



Despite the teacher’s further prompting, it became clear that her student was genuinely unaware of his chips’ agricultural origin. Such is the story for many urban and, often, low-income children, who are never taught the connection between their food and nature.

This experience reminded the teacher, Nancy Ceridwyn, why she became an environmental educator.

“What is so important to the work that I do is making connections,” she says. “Connecting people to nature, connecting them to other people, connecting them to the land.”

Ceridwyn teaches for Sustainable Agriculture Education (SAGE), a San Francisco Bay-area non-profit that promotes food access and conservation through responsible farming and educational programs.

She teaches traditional farming and farm history to elementary school children both in the classroom and in situ at a nearby farm cooperative. This twofold approach aims to show children where their food comes from and provide a platform for a broader message.

“The other piece is to understand the importance of farming, foodsheds and the importance of their own healthy eating,” Ceridwyn says.

A University of Colorado Boulder alumna who earned a B.A. in sociology in 1972, and an M.S. in physical education and recreation in 1973, Ceridwyn uses her interpersonal skills and passion for health and education to teach children about complex ecological systems such as watersheds and soil.

The corn-chips illustration was part of a lesson series on soil called “Dirt Made My Lunch.” The curriculum includes lessons on soil composition, runoff, and how plants use soil. Ceridwyn says understanding agriculture helps kids connect with the land.

What is so important to the work that I do is making connections,” she says. “Connecting people to nature, connecting them to other people, connecting them to the land."“I don’t see myself as much as a teacher but more as someone who facilitates that connection,” she says.

Ceridwyn’s own connection to the environment stems back to her time at CU.

“Being in Boulder in the ‘60s and ‘70s was pretty amazing in itself,” she says.

She remarks that terms like “sustainability” didn’t exist then, and even Boulder’s enlightened residents were resistant to the idea of leaving trash out on their sidewalks for collection.

“They thought it was detrimental to aesthetic of neighborhood,” she says.

But with the founding of environmental pioneers like Celestial Seasonings in 1969 and Eco-Cycle in 1976, health food and recycling became household vernacular.

“I was so inspired by the recycling movement that Eco-Cycle was promoting,” she remembers. “I became a recycler early.”

Beyond conservation efforts, Ceridwyn spent most of her time outside of class hiking, skiing and mountain biking. These activities enriched her learning experience and vice versa.

“Boulder has this interesting combination of being tied to the outdoors but you were stimulated by the intellectual activity,” she says. “There was a crossover between being outdoors and in the classroom.”

Ceridwyn enjoyed a 25-year career in senior health education and promotion. But recently, she decided she’d had enough of working in her San Francisco cubicle.

“My father was a CU professor and died six or seven years ago,” she recalls. “I realized life was getting too short.”

At 58, Ceridwyn returned to community college in Oakland for environmental management, where she took classes in sustainability, habitat restoration and natural and cultural interpretation.

“One of the wonderful things CU always taught me was keep learning—don’t stop,” she says.

After earning her certificate as a ranger-naturalist, Ceridwyn interned at Sunol-Ohlone Regional Wilderness, where she learned traditional farming techniques practiced by the native Ohlone people of central California.

“The Ohlone harvested roots of soap-root plants, gather seeds, acorns and California Buckeyes, which are turned into flour, and used fire for clearing bush and reseeding plants,” she explains.

This experience led Ceridwyn to her current teaching position at SAGE.

In their soil lesson series, her students are learning how compost contributes to their lunch. They are given compost samples to pull apart and examine. Among the moist, fibrous agglomeration, they find bugs.

“The kids went wild when they saw one bug eat another,” Ceridwyn laughs.

To take their concentration off of the ick factor, Ceridwyn asks the kids how the bugs are helping the compost. They pretend to be little investigators, putting one finger on their chins and saying “hmmm, interesting.”

“They named all the bugs on their plate,” she says. “That is another example of making connections.”

Meagan Taylor is a CU-Boulder alumna and freelance writer in Boulder, Colorado.

Feb. 27, 2015