The Kitchen

The Edible Schoolyard kitchen is an experiential learning classroom at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, California.  

In 2001, the original school kitchen (circa 1935) was relocated to a 40-year old bungalow adjacent to the Edible Schoolyard garden. The neglected building was rejuvenated into a spacious, welcoming kitchen classroom. Warm, bright and cheerful, the kitchen is a backdrop for enthusiastic students who view the garden through the north-facing windows – making the tacit connection between seasonality, plants, and food.

Students accompany their humanities teachers to the Edible Schoolyard kitchen, where they experience culture, history, language, ecology, and mathematics through the preparation of food. Students cook together with freshly harvested produce from the Edible Schoolyard garden and eat a freshly prepared dish, sharing the fruits of their labor around a communal table. As they cook and eat their way through the school year, students’ understanding of eating local and seasonal foods strengthens and grows.

Students harvest and prepare produce as part of their garden and kitchen classes. However, produce grown in the garden is not used for school lunch. Learn more about the impact of this program and its connection to school lunch reform at the Chez Panisse Foundation website.

Read the Edible Schoolyard Journal to learn about our daily work!