Orca grows! For the second year in a row Orca Elementary at Columbia has been awarded a STEPS School Champion grant. Parents, students and staff at Orca are digging in the dirt, growing food and loving it. Students and adults happen to be learning bucketfuls at the same time. The garden is the place where science, nutrition education, community and environmental values all come together. The garden potentially hosts several more opportunities for interdisciplinary learning across all subject areas. Orca’s garden-based education program is clearly taking root. This year’s grant will directly support a bigger availability of fresh, organic fruits and vegetables and foster the development of a long term formal garden-based nutrition education program. 

Orca is dedicated parent volunteers will use grant money to supplement the nutrition curriculum with fresh foods for taste testing, teach nutrition electives, hold a cooking demonstration and build garden resources, like a food dehydrator and an apple cider press, to prepare food grown in the garden. The garden is a magical place and to see people of all ages enjoy themselves, engaged and self-motivated while making discoveries makes it a very special learning environment.

Steps School Champion Funding – What is it? Steps to a Healthier US is a 5 year grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention focused on reducing the prevalence of asthma, diabetes, and obesity and encouraging people to be physically active, have healthy nutrition habits, and not smoke.

Begun in the fall of 2003, school based efforts have been guided by the Steps School Health Council and staffed by the Steps Schools Coordinator and Steps Nutrition Coordinator. The mission of the Council is to bring together diverse individuals and groups within the Seattle, Highline and Tukwila School Districts to equip communities with tools that reduce health disparities and promote environments and lifestyles for people of all cultures. Their vision is strong school communities where all people are active, healthy and free of the burden of chronic illness. Orca Elementary at Columbia is grateful to the Steps School health Council for the receipt of this grant.