On P.S. 84's rooftop in New York City, students tend an herb garden and share the harvest with school staff and others in their lunchroom. At an elementary school in Van Etten, N.Y., second-graders grow their own "vegetable soup" and serve it up to fellow classmates. In Ithaca, primary students at South Hill Elementary School plant apple trees within the protective confines of new deer fencing.

Simply by planting gardens of fruits, herbs and vegetables at school, thousands of students across New York state and at nearly two dozen schools in Maryland, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., are learning how to grow food and better understand agriculture in Cornell University's agricultural education program -- Kids Growing Food.

"Kids Growing Food connects children to the food system and to agriculture," says Nancy Schaff, director of New York's Agriculture in the Classroom, an agricultural literacy program established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in each state to bring agricultural and food systems awareness to schools. "The program helps connect schools to people in the community who work in agriculture. The garden-based learning is integrated into the curriculum and provides a meaningful context for children to learn because it's so hands-on."

Kids Growing Food began in 1998 as a hands-on food-growing part of the literacy program in the Department of Education

Kids Growing Food gardens, ranging from traditional outdoor raised-bed vegetable gardens, apple orchards and berry patches to indoor classroom, greenhouse and hydroponics food gardens, have been supported at nearly 300 schools throughout New York state. Teachers, who receive small garden grants and attend annual workshops, use the gardens to teach such cross-disciplinary subjects as math, science, geography, history and English language arts.

At Burton Street Elementary School in Cazenovia, N.Y., for example, teacher Helen Byrne says the students' garden fits well with New York state learning standards. "Our second-grade curriculum, especially, uses the garden in studies of nutrition, plant cycles and local and state history," she said. For their first year's garden, staff, students and volunteers planted a traditional Native American "three sisters" garden, consisting of corn, beans and squash, in a sunny fenced-in space on the southeast side of their school.

"Students not only learned something about horticulture and why these important food plants are planted together," Byrne says, "but they also learned the plants' Iroquois names. The garden is full of classroom lessons."

In New York City and other urban settings, the program reaches many students who have never had food-growing experiences and often don't have the opportunity to visit farms.

"One of the best ways we have found to teach young people about the importance of agriculture is by having them grow food themselves," says Schaff. "The students no longer take food for granted. With a garden, children learn that food doesn't magically appear in the grocery store -- the farmer has worked hard to get it there."

Gail Shaw, a second-grade teacher at Belle Sherman Elementary School in Ithaca, says the garden there provides meaningful, long-lasting learning. "Former students not only visit the garden but get their new classrooms involved, too. Other teachers in the school have started to use the site as a garden classroom, and still others take students there for 'quiet space' -- another kind of nourishment the garden provides."

To learn more, contact at (607) 255-9252, send e-mail to kidsgrowingfood@cornell.edu or go to the Kids Growing Food Web site at http://www.cerp.cornell.edu/kgf.html.

Margaret A. Barker, a writer and educator, coordinated Kids Growing Food in New York from 1999 to 2005. Reprinted and abridged, courtesy of Cornell Plantations Magazine. For information on events and membership, call (607) 255-2400 or visit http://www.plantations.cornell.edu.