3rd-5th Grade Agriculture, Home Economics, and Science Teacher, Feeding Futures Fellow

Dvorak School of Excellence

Ms. Woods is a member of Pilot Light’s Feeding Futures Fellowship in Illinois. She is an educator passionate about Food Education.

Favorite Food Education Standard: FES #1: Food connects us to each other. 

We are all connected by a higher power I believe. Making us more alike than different. I see that in the ingredients that we use to prepare our food and the shared nutrients that they provide.

A Favorite Food Memory or Recipe: 

Making margarita Pizzas with Summer camp students! 

What I’m Most Excited About as a Feeding Futures Fellow: 

I mostly excited to learn, fellowship and expand the knowledge of culture, nutritional science, and food diversity. I cant wait to explore and share more about the connection between food and mental/emotional health.

My Feeding Futures Food Advocacy Project: 

Dvorak School Of Excellence’s 8th grade  students focused on natural selection in a food desert as their advocacy project. Students studied the short and long-term effects of living in food a desert versus living in food oasis. Sixth and seventh graders took the eighth graders research a little bit further by studying a few of the most prominent health ailments in the community. 

After their research was completed, middle school lead their community in taking preventative and proactive measures. 

They displayed their work in the hallways of their school and donated some of their advocacy posters to local community organizations. Students posters gave healthier alternatives to some of our favorite cultural foods, 

Promote physical activity, listed several gardens/ organizations in the nearby area where fresh fruit, and vegetables were available affordable, and even some with an option for delivery. Students also gave a tutorial of how to properly monitor blood pressure to both children and adults. 

Lastly, students took a major step in being a part of the change that they wish to see.  They led our younger students (3rd- 5th graders) in planting crops in our community garden as well in their classroom. Middle school also took small groups of students (2nd grade – 5th grade) and gave them tutorials on how to properly use a hydroponic system, the benefits of doing so, and seed identification. Students then harvested the crops that were ready,  and took them home to share with their families. 

As their legacy project,  middle school has left this garden behind for the next generation of leaders, and young explorers. It is a place where we gather, heal, eat, and grow.