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Each year Wingra School runs an all-school unit of study. Children ages 5-14 mix it up for daily all-school assemblies, study groups, field trips and service learning projects. This year the Wingra School community studied food. Multi-age teams of students explored the theme, organized into concentric circles related to self (nutrition), then building out to family, local, regional, global and future issues and information.

Week One
This year's ASU kicked off in the gym, where teaching teams performed "infomercials" for each topic. Every student had a chance to attend a class in each topic throughout the week.

On Day two, students all went on a field trip to the College of Agricultural Life Sciences Day for Kids, at the Stock Pavilion. Kids were also all involved in planting our container garden. Click this link for a short CALS Day slideshow, including photos of our kids!

On Day three, community speakers (a chef from the Willy Street Co-Op, farmers, a pediatrician, a nutritionist) shared their expertise with Wingra School.

Throughout the week, all students and teachers were also pursuing their normal units of study, so it was a rich, full week. We ended in the gym with the velvety jazz tones of the Mara Rosenbloom Quartet. Fabulous!

Week Two
During week two, students dove into a deeper examination of a topic from week one (Self, Family, Local, National, Global or Future). We kicked off Week Two with an All School Assembly. This continued each morning all week, with each assembly lead by one of the multi-age All School Games groups. The theme? "Food for Thought," of course.

Day two's field trips ranged all over Madison and beyond. The Self group bussed to the HyVee supermarket to learn about their NuVal rating system. They learned how to read food labels to determine how much sugar and how many calories, vitamins and minerals were in individual servings of foods.

The Family group visited the Assisted Living building in Oakwood Retirement Village and spoke with several residents about family food traditions and rituals. They shared amazing intergenerational conversations and stories! The Local group visited Troy Gardens and the Goodman Center to learn about programs to grow, give, and store food locally. They also went to the Farmer's Market to learn about what is grown locally and what one might consume as a localvore.

The National group visited Cedar Grove Cheese Factory to learn about the process of making (and eating!) cheese. Global folk went to Eagle Heights community garden. They spoke with gardeners, and talked with a rep from a student-run CSA. Then they walked to Penzey's spice store on University Ave. The Future group forayed to Willy Street Co-op to learn how co-ops work, and about Willy Street's earth-friendly practices.

Throughout the rest of the week, each group continued to meet. The Self group assembled food-package sculptures representing food choices for an entire day that added up to 1800 calories (the recommended amount for a child for one day). They created fliers to stuff in shopping bags at HyVee. These fliers inform shoppers about the New Food Pyramid and Go, Slow and Whoa! foods.

The Family group created "treasured memories" books, including stories, recipes, pictures and original art work, for the senior citizens the group met on Tuesday. The Local group conducted a food pantry study to determine what was needed to reduce the risk of hunger in our community. They also gathered donations from our school neighborhood for the Goodman Center Food Pantry.

The National group visited Copps to find out where their dairy products come from. The group then took what they learned from their field trips and videos and created projects (skits, posters, etc.) to share the information and educate the Wingra community. The Global group visited the Catholic Multicultural Center, to see its food pantry and meal program set-up. They're making spice sachets, and have been perusing the book What the World Eats.

Finally, the Future group has built a composter for the school, and decorated compost buckets for each classroom. So the ASU will live on into Wingra's future, not just in our minds, but in our soil.

Click here to read our press release.