A long overdue update! Part I

Hello All, while we don't really experience "winter" here in Oakland, I still took a little time to hibernate and work on programing and planning. I'm happy to finally be updating the blog and sharing in the exciting work we have been doing!

The Green Team has been very busy! The Green Team decided that it was important for all the garbage and recycling bins to be well labeled, so thanks to the publishing class, we have beautiful signs for our garbage and recycling! The Green Team spent close to four hours labeling every can we have in the school! Then the Green Team went around to each Advisory class and gave a power point presentation about where our garbage goes, how much we waste and the importance of reducing the amount of garbage we produce.


Above left: Nathanel reinforcing a point on a slide. Above right: Sabas, Karen, Chandra and Miguel
teaching a class.









Green team members labeling garbage cans.


Left: Brisa, Tenzin and Fatima showing where the garbage goes.

We have started cooking class! Thanks to the generous support of the Berkeley High School BBQ Club and the Center for Ecoliteracy we have been able to buy cooking equipment to have a moveable kitchen and food for cooking classes. For our first class, we made fresh fava bean soup and hummus. The next class we made Dal and samosas and last week we made potato fritters and a green salad with beets and warm goat cheese. The greens and beets were from our garden! So far there have been between 5-12 students from all different countries who have participated in the class. We are hoping to get some parents involved as well.

Below: potato fritters with onion and tomato relish and a beet and warm goat cheese salad.

Left: Pujan &
Sosina are excited to finally eat!









Above: Pujan and Shazia are already expert cooks!
Left: Sosina, Ana and Perla prepare the salad from our garden.

Above left: Shazia serving up Dal. Above right: Jessica preparing the spinach for the Dal
Above left: Asmait, Arsema and Sosina on the first day of class. Above right: Julieta and Ernestina rinsing red lentils.

This week at OIHS

This week, we cooked collards following the directions of Alicia, one of our new 9th graders from Guatemala. We cooked them with onions and tomatoes and they were delicious! I was so impressed with the knowledge and confidence our students took on the kitchen this week. We served the collards for lunch to our school community.
Also this week I started teaching yoga class! I've had 8-10 students in each class and we're having a great time!

Cooking and Gardening

The following photos are from two days of harvesting and cooking with a few small groups of students. We harvested mustard greens, kale, bok choy, collards, lettuce and cilantro. We then served the food to all 300 students at lunch. We made a salad with butter lettuce, a cilantro spread on crackers and cooked greens with lemon and garlic. We got great feedback from many students who tried our tasty fresh offerings. The chef students were amazing, focused, hard working, with very positive attitudes. They also worked really well together. I can't wait to do more cooking with them. I'm working on getting a cooking cart so we can have a little more space and more kids can be involved. This week we will cook greens following a recipe from one of the students who loves cooked greens and wants to try cooking them her way!