In Santa Fe, Cooking with Kids Program Tries to Make Fruits and Vegetables Interesting
Developing an innovative model for elementary school-based nutrition education
Cooking with Kids is a hands-on food and nutrition education program that operates in 12 elementary schools in Santa Fe, N.M. The program includes "tasting classes," in which classroom teachers invite youngsters to use their senses to explore a variety of fruits and vegetables.
From November 2004 to October 2005, staff at Cooking with Kids worked to:
- Refine the existing tasting curriculum.
- Create additional lessons.
- Improve the Spanish translation of the lessons.
- Launch a Cooking with Kids Web site where users can download the lessons.
Key Results
- The Cooking with Kids Web site went live on September 20, 2005. By July 30, 2006, 280 people had registered for free downloads of the tasting lessons.
Funding
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) supported this unsolicited project with a $25,000 grant to Santa Fe Partners in Education, which serves as the fiscal agent for Cooking with Kids.