colorful barn at UCSC Life Lab

Before Christmas, I was invited to visit the UC Santa Cruz Life Lab during a children’s field trip. It had been raining the day before, but as I drove up the hill through the main University entrance I had my window open and I inhaled deeply of the sweet moist air.  After a couple of wrong turns I reached the small parking lot just as the first grade class and their chaperones arrived. Walking down the dirt road, through the wooden gate and into the garden classroom, I felt like I had entered a magical world, part Alice in Wonderland and part Barbara Kingsolver.

Whimsical signs and sculptures dotted the prolific garden. As I explored, I saw many different kinds of vegetable beds and boxes, a “rot zone” with a variety of compost containers and worm bins, a children’s conversation circle surrounded by vines, fruit trees, and raised flowerbeds, all connected by a colorful mosaic pathway.

Further up the hill were more fruit trees and vines, a bee hive, and a chicken coop. It seemed like a wonderful place to spend the morning, and I was ready to settle down in a wooden bench beside the pineapple guava bush when my host arrived and led me further up the hill to the outdoor kitchen.

Pressing tortillas

I had volunteered to flip tortillas, so next came a lesson in lighting the propane stove, transferring the newly made tortillas from the children’s hands to mine by means of a “high five,” and a reminder to keep the children behind the string fence that protected them from the “hot zone.”

“Carrots grow in the soil?”

Next I met the interns who would be working directly with the children, and we joined the youngsters in a small amphitheater where the field trip leader would orient us to the to the day’s topic, which was Harvest Time. As I watched in delight, the children were introduced the six parts of a plant with the help of a volunteer child who was dressed, piece by piece in colored plant-part garments until she “became” a shining green plant, complete with flowers, stems, roots, and seeds.

The interns took their groups to different parts of the garden and explained what we would be doing for the rest of their visit.  I joined one of the groups, and we meandered through the child-sized Life Lab garden, sampling the food-portions of several plants, then continuing on to the larger beds which are part of the Farm and Garden run by the UCSC Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems, sampling various plants.  Before we finished our ramble, we had munched on carrots, rhubarb, kale, apples, broccoli, and pineapple guavas (the ones by that lovely bench, which I never did get to sit in).

High Five!

It didn’t escape the children that, as we nibbled, we were working our way up from the roots of the plants to the leaves and flowers, and it didn’t escape them later, when they were introduced to a stone grinding wheel and a metate for making corn masa.The resulting tortillas had been made out of corn seeds. We had sampled each part of a plant!

After the children left, I said farewell to the Life Lab staff and walked slowly down the magical garden classroom, through the wooden gate, and along the quiet access road.  On the way to my car I saw two rabbits, a squirrel, and several very cheerful birds.

Thank you, Life Lab, for a wonderful day.