Principal David Friedrich shares about the Vertical Farming Initiative he and his colleague, Helen Corveleyn have grown together at their school, Hopewell Elementary in Hopewell, New Jersey. David received the Top Tomato Award in 2016 for this work and Helen was recently a recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST) - the highest award kindergarten through 12th grade mathematics and science teachers can receive from the U.S. government. Hopewell Elementary School is one of four elementary schools within Hopewell Valley Regional School District.
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Principal David Friedrich shares about the Vertical Farming Initiative he and his colleague, Helen Corveleyn have grown together at their school, Hopewell Elementary in Hopewell, New Jersey. David received the Top Tomato Award in 2016 for this work and Helen was recently a recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST) - the highest award kindergarten through 12th grade mathematics and science teachers can receive from the U.S. government. Hopewell Elementary School is one of four elementary schools within Hopewell Valley Regional School District.
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Schoolutions –S1 E20: Vertical Farming Brings STEM Education & Next Generation Science Standards to Life with David Friedrich
[00:00:00] Olivia: Welcome to Schoolutions, where listening will leave you inspired by solutions to issues you or others you know may be struggling with in the public education system today. I am Olivia Wahl, and I am thrilled to introduce you to my guest. David Friedrich. David and I have been friends and colleagues for 15 years.
[00:00:23] Olivia: David began his career as a teacher in Hopewell Valley Regional School District. He taught at Bear Tavern Elementary School, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades. a taught overseas as well, and then moved on to becoming assistant principal with Robbinsville Public Schools at Sharon Elementary School. And that's where I had the fortune of our paths intersecting.
[00:00:47] Olivia: I was working literacy with the school district and I spent many hours with teachers in David's office thinking of literacy strategies and different work we could do to enhance students’ lives. I then had the fortune of continuing our relationship when David took a principalship at Hopewell Valley Regional School District with Hopewell Elementary School.
[00:01:08] Olivia: David has been principal of Hopewell Elementary School for 13 years. David, welcome.
[00:01:15] David: Thank you so much, Olivia. I appreciate the warm welcome and it's hard to believe that we have been friends for 15 years now.
[00:01:22] Olivia: It’s awesome in many ways. I love to ask guests about who has been an inspiring teacher for you and your path as an educator.
[00:01:32] David: I appreciate the question, and it's hard for me to single out one specific educator. Considering the fact that I've been at my current school for 13 years, I want to collectively identify and celebrate the staff with whom I have the pleasure of working each and every day, because I know no finer staff that's more committed, eager, and just 100%, um, doing all that they possibly can to nurture, inspire, and educate kids.
[00:02:00] David: They're entirely collaborative. highly professional, and we remove any excuses from their vocabulary. It's a true honor and privilege to work with them, and I think they all need to be celebrated and recognized.
[00:02:12] Olivia: I concur. I love your staff. And even though I haven't worked with the school district in a long time, I've kept in touch with many friends and colleagues, and we continue to have conversations around literacy work. Something that I wanted to highlight that is going on in your school and has been for quite a few years is the Hopewell Elementary School Vertical Farming Initiative. I work with many schools that food sustainability is an issue.
[00:02:39] Olivia: Where are we getting the food? How are we teaching children about healthy options for eating? I would love to be able to have listeners learn about the Vertical Farming Initiative and also to highlight some of the awards that you've acquired over time. Would you first share what the vertical farming initiative is for listeners?
[00:02:59] Olivia: And then I'll get to give you some shout-outs for awards you've won.
[00:03:04] David: Of course. The Vertical Farming Initiative came to Hopewell Elementary School in in 2016. I was particularly proud of all that our school offered. We did everything we can to meet kids’ social and emotional needs, provided a rigorous and differentiated academic experience.
[00:03:22] David: But when we talked about nurturing the whole child, I felt like we weren't succeeding when it came to food provided in the cafeteria. And certainly, it's no different than most public schools across our country. The Vertical Farming Initiative, thanks to Helen Corveleyn, our STEM facilitator. Who was recently recognized as one of the top science educators in the country by President Biden, um, helped to spearhead this initiative.
[00:03:47] David: We secured over $25,000 in grants.
[00:03:50] Olivia: Wow.
[00: 03:50] David: And we essentially built a customized vertical farm within one of our classrooms that was modeled off of the unique design at Princeton University. The only difference is that ours was between two and three times the size of theirs.
[00:04:08] Olivia: Oh my goodness!
[00:04:08] David: Yes, so, in our vertical farm, we were growing everything from various herbs, vegetables, and even different types of strawberries.
[00:04:17] David: And the goal really was to offer nutritious local ingredients and organic ingredients so that we can prepare delicious food for our kids in the cafeteria and get them excited about eating healthy.
[00:04:30] Olivia: I know from working with Helen, she's an innovator, and it's rare when I am living professional development in a school district that a science teacher asks to sit in on her own accord, and Helen did, time and time again, and was making beautiful content connections to how the curriculum that she was steeping children in, which was already incredibly rich, could support reading, writing, math work that was happening in the classroom.
[00:05:01] Olivia: So, I'm glad she's getting the recognition she so deserves. For listeners, can you explain why it is called a Vertical Farming Initiative?
[00:05:09] Olivia: Why the term vertical?
[00:05:12] David: It's generally design. It's built from bottom up, and the whole notion behind vertical farming is that it's a soilless environment. When you often ask children, what do plants need to thrive and survive? They talk about water, sunlight, nutrients, and soil. And in a Vertical Farming initiative, one of the main advantages is that through specific specialized lights, and nutrients, you can increase the speed at which plants grow while using 95% less water than traditional gardening and farming.
[00:05:50] Olivia: My goodness. So, the implications are incredible. And how do the students have access to this classroom in your building?
[00:05:58] David: The beautiful thing about this is my passion happens to be nutritious food in the cafeteria. My colleague, Helen came at it from a slightly different angle and thought this is a perfect opportunity to address Next-Generation Science Standards and bring STEM Education to life.
[00:06:16] David: Every single student from preschool through grade five is highly involved and hands-on in this initiative.
[00:06:23] Olivia: That's amazing.
[00:06:24] David: Helen's an expert in not adding anything extra to teacher's plates because that's the last thing they need, but taking a look at standards in our existing curriculum and developing projects that meet both.
[00:06:37] Olivia: You received the award called the Top Tomato award in 2016 for this work, and it's well deserved. Can you explain to folks what that top tomato award usually entails?
[00:06:51] David: Certainly, I appreciated the recognition from the New Jersey Partner School Network as well as the New Jersey Department of Agriculture. They recognize for individuals or groups throughout the year that are committed to farm-to-school initiatives.
[00:07:07] David: My passion happened to be, once again, our farm-to-school program. We touched a little bit on vertical farming, but we also have 16 raised beds outdoors. And it's really important for children to experience both approaches to gardening and understand how one complements the other.
[00:07:24] Olivia: I’ve heard you speak to this was going to impact your actual cafeteria.
[00:07:29] Olivia: How in the world did you move from the students being involved in the classroom with the raised beds outside to getting that food prepared and cultivated into the actual cafeteria setting?
[00:07:41] David: I tried to come up with a multi-year plan in order to draw attention to the cafeteria, which started off with relationships.
[00:07:48] David: So, nurtured a relationship with our wonderful PTA. We purchased roundtables in 2014, which really drew attention to our cafeteria. The whole notion is that we're not having 16 kids at long tables anymore. We're having eight children sitting in a more intimate setting because when you think about it, that's where life-long friendships start.
[00:08:11] David: It's in the cafeteria through those casual, informal conversations. From there, I reached out to our Superintendent and Business Administrator, requested a meeting with the president of our food provider. After some long, candid conversations, our district finally agreed to pilot an organic program featuring nutritious local ingredients, all homemade at school.
[00:08:35] David: And that's how it started. We needed special permission from the Department of Agriculture in order to take advantage of local ingredients. I know there was some hesitation from our Business Administrator initially about the level of interest, but by the end of the first year, sales were 500 times what they expected them to be.
[00:08:54] Olivia: Oh, my gosh! And so, the children in the building have the option of selecting and the cafeteria staff are using the ingredients from the gardens to prepare the food?
[00:09:05] David: Pre-COVID, that's exactly what was happening. We started off with one meal a week, moved to two meals a week, and eventually moved to three organic meals a week. All of which included and featured vegetables and herbs from our garden.
[00:09:19] Olivia: And where are you now with this?
[00:09:22] David: Unfortunately, because of COVID, we had to scale back tremendously. We are starting to jumpstart our six portable towers, and we hope to completely start anew with our vertical farm in September, actually more over the summer, so that when students return to school in September of 2022, we'll be good to go and ready to serve that food in our cafeteria.
[00:09:46] Olivia: David, one of my favorite things to do with my fourth grader at home as well as my ninth grader is to cook. It's to taste and experiment with all different ingredients and see what happens when you put them together. And I think of how math and science, how involved they are with cooking. I absolutely adored watching the videos you and Helen created and your school kitchen over the pandemic.
[00:10:16] Olivia: It was a bright spot to catch those videos whenever I could. Would you please share with listeners how you continued to connect with your families, with your community using cooking, using science and math?
[00:10:31] David: Absolutely. One of the lofty goals we had was for there to be an installation of a teaching kitchen. Let's just say that when it comes to the installation of these types of things in a public school, it's jumping through a lot of hoops and cutting through a lot of red tape. And fortunately, our Superintendent at the time worked diligently with us to make it happen. As of the beginning of this year, we officially launched our and unveiled our teaching kitchen.
[00:10:56] David: What we did was we hosted virtual cooking classes for interested students and families to cook at home. We had a wonderful fifth-grade teacher that did the videography, uh recording and provided multiple angles, and we really focused on Thanksgiving sides so that children can help prepare the holiday meal with their families, all of which were vegetarian or vegan.
[00:11:22] Olivia: Okay. I wanted to ask for clarification that the Top Chef enrichment classes, those are a separate piece of that that kitchen can also support?
[00:11:32] David: One of my passions is obviously cooking and eating. Not necessarily in that order. I looked all over to try to find chefs to bring into our school to host enrichment classes.
[00:11:44] David: Ultimately couldn't find any, so decided to design a six-week course that invited local chefs into our school to cook with children. Interest was so high among students that registration literally filled up within the first minute of it going online.
[00:12:02] Olivia: Oh my gosh.
[00:12:03] David: So, there is a real craving and yearning among students to cook. This wasn't like placing microwavable meals and preheating them. It was really about authentic cooking, knife techniques, and things of that nature. Students learned how to make homemade pastas. They hand-rolled sushi with my favorite sushi chef in town. They made street tacos. It was a lot of fun and it culminated with our group of students conceiving, preparing, and serving a lunch for our entire school population during the day.
[00:12:37] David: So that was pretty cool.
[00:12:39] Olivia: That's pretty amazing. It's almost impossible to stop that beautiful community, that work that's happening at the doors of the cafeteria or at the doors of the school kitchen. How have you seen this impact the work that's happening in classrooms? How are children transferring that into the even the literacy work, the reading, writing work?
[00:13:01] David: We're seeing teachers that are inspired by books that they're reading, coming up with meals and using our teaching kitchen and bringing students into there. You know, it's one thing if Helen or I are facilitating those activities, but the real goal is for teachers to take ownership of that space. And we're already seeing it from teachers of literacy, teachers of mathematics, and really all disciplines across the board.
[00:13:25] Olivia: What do you anticipate for the future? Are you doing another round of Top Chef? Where do you see this going?
[00:13:32] David: Another round of Top Chef is definitely in the works. We are really committed to expanding our outdoor spaces on our property. The virtual classes that we offered in the fall are going to finance our hammock forest.
[00:13:47] David: So, if you could envision thirty or forty hammocks spread out throughout our property, and fortunately, we're blessed with acres and acres of land, that's going to be just a wonderful space for kids to use. So not directly related to food, per se, but certainly, um, the money was raised in order to take advantage of something like that.
[00:14:04] Olivia: And so when you speak to money being raised, how much did you charge families to participate?
[00:14:11] David: We decided for a pretty modest amount, I want to say maybe like $30 for the four classes and then they were responsible for purchasing ingredients. I think we realized that price point was a bit low considering what we offered.
[00:14:26] David: So, for the next round of cooking classes, we had two other teachers that volunteered, and they accepted donations depending on what families wished to contribute. And it raised significantly more. For us the fundraising is secondary. But if you could do something worthwhile with it, it's an added bonus.
[00:14:44] Olivia: Absolutely. And it's enhancing your beautiful campus as well.
[00:14:48] David: It absolutely is. We're just really excited about what we're doing indoors, but also outdoors as well. And we purchased, um, through a grant, a pizza oven last year. That's something that we're really looking forward to taking advantage of, like helping children grow and harvest veggies, do some flatbread pizzas and things like that.
[00:15:07] Olivia: To wrap our conversation, I wanted to ask two questions around specific farm-to-school events that you have taken on, as well as the impacts within the surrounding community. How have you seen this have a bigger ripple effect?
[00:15:24] David: I can think of two events in particular prior to the pandemic, and this is something that we hope to bring back next year.
[00:15:30] David: We host the Farm-to-School Day every fall during National Farm-to-School Week. It's a day that we invited local chefs and farmers to offer tastings and demonstrations in and around our garden area. So, that's a wonderful way to forge relationships with local chefs, local farmers, to help children understand the importance of supporting local and to expand their palates.
[00:15:56] Olivia: Absolutely.
[00:15:56] David: That, that's one day that we really enjoy. And then we follow it in October, we partner with a magazine called Kiwi Magazine, which is the largest organic family-friendly magazine in the country. And they host a take your parent to lunch day. So, one day in October we bring our round tables outside, in and around our garden area, covering them with paper tablecloths, harvest some beautiful flowers and centerpieces, and we unveil a new organic meal, and invite students to enjoy lunch with their parents.
[00:16:30] David: And that's grown in popularity to a point where the last time we held it, nearly a hundred percent of our parents were present. And the feedback we get just really, really warms your heart.
[00:16:39] Olivia: You mentioned having chefs from the surrounding community come in, uh, any other beautiful results of this work within the community that you've heard?
[00:16:49] David: You know, I would say, um, not directly, but certainly related through one of the relationships we forged with one of the local chefs. We actually held a fundraiser a couple of years ago for a child that was diagnosed with a medical condition.
[00:17:04] David: And a handful of teachers and I went over to that restaurant, and we served as guest servers for the night and all the donations that we received through tips went to that family directly. When you talk about like living in a small town that's close-knit, um, it truly is all about relationships and, and supporting one another.
[00:17:26] Olivia: And that's something, David, that always resonates with me again about the school district in general and the staff at Hopewell Elementary.
[00:17:35] Olivia: There's a love for the students for the families and for just caring and tending to each other. I know when the teachers have things happen in their lives, they are just there for each other. And I think in times like what we're experiencing now, it's more important than ever, I adore how you have found innovative ways to reach out and connect with families when it seemed really hard to do that.
[00:18:00] Olivia: And I'm so excited to see where this goes now that things are getting back to a way that we can do that work that you were doing before in the kitchen and having the kids prepare the meals with the staff. So, it's it's very exciting.
[00:18:16] David: Thank you. Well, I appreciate you taking the time to shed some light on what our teachers are doing in terms of innovation.
[00:18:23] David: And I do want to conclude by saying that none of this is possible without a staff like we have at Hopewell Elementary School. That is truly committed to supporting one another. That continues to take the high road that even during a pandemic, always look at the glass half full. That's that speaks volumes and it's a privilege to be a part of it.
[00:18:44] Olivia: I agree and it's lovely for children to see that modeled for them day in and day out a true love of community.
[00:18:52] Olivia: And as you've said numerous times, relationships are critical to everything we do. David, I am grateful for your friendship, for you being such a smart colleague of mine. And I'm excited to highlight this amazing farm-to-school work that you've been taking on for a while now. Thank you for being a guest.
[00:19:11] David: Thanks for having me, Olivia. And, you know, I've always looked at you as someone that not only is an expert in literacy, but someone that is just a really good soul.
[00:19:21] Olivia: Thank you.
[00:19:22] David: And it's an honor to share this time with you in this space with you. I'm excited to follow you as you embark on this wonderful journey, highlighting educators and parents that are doing innovative things.
[00:19:32] David: So, thank you and kudos to you. Thank
[00:19:34] Olivia: Thank you, David. Take care.
[00:19:36] David: You too.