Food Day Article from Princeton Packet

PLAINSBORO: Community Middle School student organizes Food Day

By Jennifer Kohlhepp, Staff Writer Published on Tuesday, October 28, 2014 12:33 PM EDT  PLAINSBORO — Candy isn’t the only thing that’s sweet this time of year. During Food Day at Community Middle School, students learned about the sweet winter squash pumpkin, which can be used in pies, muffins and bread. Lori Appelgat of Appelgat Farm in West Windsor demonstrated how to remove pumpkin flesh while her assistant, Virginia Perry-Unger of Lambertville, gave kids bags of pumpkin seeds roasted in honey, nutmeg, clove, salt and cinnamon. All of this happened while Tilly, one of the farm’s chickens, looked on. "Basically Food Day started off as an idea stemming from one of our Gifted and Talented students — Akila Saravanan, an eighth-grader who started this idea last year in April 2013. She participated in the 2014 National History Day project on food and food lab and wanted to continue the topic and make a difference in the school. She also applied for a West Windsor-Plainsboro Education Foundation grant and was awarded grant money, which she used to have posters made," Principal Shauna Carter said. Thirteen-year-old Akila started the project under the direction of Prism Gifted and Talented teacher Karen Rosnick, who has since retired, and continued it with the help of new Prism Gifted and Talented teacher Rebecca McLelland-Crawley. She also engaged Life Skills teacher Alicia Buck in the project. "The adults helped Akila make connections with local farmers," Principal Carter said. "She also worked with our cafeteria manager so like most other days students have healthy choices. Today we have more healthy choices."Akila’s project also consists of a website for teachers to use as a resource for finding ways to incorporate "eating fresh foods and making healthy choices" into their classroom curriculums. In the Gifted and Talented classroom that day, Ms. McLelland-Crawley taught a lesson on scenario writing, picking "processed foods" as the essay topic to go along with the theme of Food Day. She presented her students with an apple from this year’s harvest and a 2034 apple, which was gigantic and had cracked skin. "We’re writing a creative 1,500 word short stories on the future of our food," she said. After looking in on the various Food Day activities going on in the school, Akila spoke about what inspired her to organize Food Day.  "I learned a lot about healthy eating and the secrets behind the junk food that we eat and it completely changed my eating habits," she said. "It’s important to me that if I learn something the people around me know it to."