Teach Food!

From an idea in a living room six years ago, Mundo Verde PCS has grown into a nurturing environment for 538 students in Washington, DC, with two buildings, cisterns, raised vegetable beds, and nearly 100 full-time staff.  It is a school, yet so much more.  Serving students from PreK – 4^th grade, Mundo Verde is an Ashoka Changemaker School and recipient of the Secretary of Education’s Green Ribbon School award.  I am honored to have been involved as a founding board member and now as designer and champion of the TeachFood! program.

Mundo Verde is developing leaders for the next generation – supporting stewards of our common future with a foundation of knowledge that comes from bilingual immersion, expeditionary learning and sustainability. With wellness of self and empathy for others at the core of that educational experience, enabling a love of learning and intellectual engagement, Mundo Verde is cultivating deep emotional, educational, and environmental intelligence.  So much more than a school, with dedicated parents and community partners, Mundo Verde is emerging as a national model for what it means to be a 21^st century community school – and then some.

With TeachFood! we have inverted the traditional model of a kitchen as simply part of the school infrastructure and are redefining it as a classroom where students and celebrity chefs collaborate to learn – and teach -- through cooking.   The program concept and expansion is described elsewhere on this page as are the gifted chefs participating in TeachFood!

We are proud to be pioneering this new program, building on the work of food and school innovators from across the country.    We expect this program to continue evolving as we balance the core needs of our students and their families with our commitment to both community and excellence is education. 

Merging tradition with innovation, the MV campus at P Street and North Capitol
includes the renovated JF Cook school building as well as our brand new building.  

La Casita was designed specifically for our youngest students.

Raised beds engage students in the hands-on experience of learning
what it means to plant, tend, and harvest our food.