Children learn meal preparation through environmental summer camp in Slippery Rock Township
SLIPPERY ROCK TWP — Although he doesn’t particularly enjoy the taste of garlic, 8-year-old Oscar Sutton helped harvest some Monday, July 17.
The Macoskey Center for Sustainability Education & Research has a farm-to-fork camp this week where children are learning how to harvest and prepare their own food. Garlic was just one of the plants the children learned how to harvest.
“Probably, my favorite part was pulling the garlic from the garden,” Oscar said.
The camp is the last week of full-day camps offered by the Macoskey Center, but it still will offer some one-off summer camp days during the remainder of the summer.
Sami Laurence, director of the Macoskey Center, said 15 children were enrolled in the farm-to-fork camp, which is one of the biggest groups the center had this summer. She said that at the end of farm-to-fork week, the children would prepare a meal using all the skills they learned during the camp.
“We’re making salsa tomorrow with some of the herbs,” Laurence said. “They’ll make pizza in the oven, homemade chips — they’ll use the lemonade they squeezed today to give to their parents and guardians.”
Throughout the rest of the week, children would learn about farm animals and how they are cared for; gardening and planting crops and how to prepare them for harvest; and how to turn harvested plants into meals.
According to Laurence, every one of the four camps the Macoskey Center hosted this summer is focused on education, and each taught children how to be more environmentally friendly. She said the environmental education offered by the camps is what makes them distinct from other summer camp programs.
“We landed on these topics by basically brainstorming,” Laurence said of the camp themes. “It’s all truly environmental education. We’re teaching them about nature and how we affect it.”
The camps are coordinated by Laurence and her staff of undergraduate students and graduate assistants. Laurence said the camps this year garnered more attendance compared to last year and the other years the Macoskey Center hosted them, and she hopes to offer camps consistently every summer from going forward.
She also said the camps attracted families from at least 13 municipalities this year.
On Tuesday, July 18, children juiced lemons and blackberries to prepare to make lemonade for their meal, while the older age group of children, up to 11 years old, learned about how different plants went well together when seeded in the same garden.
Laurence said she plans to develop the camp programming for future summers so children could come back in subsequent years to improve their knowledge.
“We’re trying to standardize the camps to make them consistent,” Laurence said.
