Food: Just Grow It! is an agricultural project by the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources' Cooperative Extension Services. It promotes optimal personal and consumer health, mental and emotional health, healthy nutrition and physical activity, and concern for the environment through agriculture-related activities. Health and wellness through physical activity is incorporated into the program through the physical labor involved with gardening.

The project offers training for school teams, learning gardens on each island, and resources and technical support in organic/sustainable agriculture, nutrition, food safety, horticulture therapy and service learning.

OVERVIEW

Food: "JUST GROW IT" includes a supplementary compendium of teaching-learning activities that are designed to enhance students' thinking and reasoning skills. The desired outcome of the compendium is for students to make sound decisions and choices in their adult lives that will lead to healthy individuals, communities, and environments. The contexts of the activities are relevant to the real world concern for sustainable production of food.

Teachers from various disciplines are invited to use the activities in their integrated manner with their content and/or to join other teachers in presenting the activities of their extensions as part of team or thematic teaching.

GOALS

The overall goal as stated earlier is for students to make sound decisions and choices in their adult lives that lead to healthy individuals, communities, and environments. This goal is directly related to the skills of "communicating, reasoning, and ivestigating which characterize a health-literate person." (Health Content Standards, Department of Education, State of Hawaii. August 1999, p.1)

In support of the overall goal, the activities were designed to address the four General Learner Outcomes of the Department of Education:

• The ability to be responsible for one's own learning
• The understanding that it is essential for human beings to work together
• The ability to be involved in complex thinking and problem solving
• The ability to recognize and produce quality performance and quality products