Healthy Food, Healthy Living Plans underway to create campus food garden

PAOLA CASTILLO Reporter @TheRoundupNews

Pierce College might soon have a fall harvest of its own.

Faculty members have been planning to create a food garden on campus that will provide fresh produce to students.

The project is being led by Department Chair for Industrial Technology Elizabeth Cheung and Architecture Technology Professor Beth Abels.

After hearing about the high percentage of food-insecure students in the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD), Cheung and Abels wanted to find a way to provide fresh produce for those that might not have access to it.

“[Pierce] is a place that has a tradition of farming,” Abels said. “And it seemed like it made sense to start thinking ‘how could we grow fresh produce that would serve the pantry and serve S.T.A.S.H. and Art Soup so they can make soup with fresh produce?’” information.

Canceling a class before the semester starts is not ideal for either students or faculty.

In the week prior to the start of the fall 2019 semester, 18 sections were canceled.

Vice-President of Academic Affairs Sheri Berger explained the factors and reasoning behind cancelling a class. “We’re looking to see where the demand is; what classes are filling, and which ones aren’t,” Berger said. “We’ll cancel something that doesn’t have a high demand for something that does; we do a conversion. This happened a lot this year with the AB705 in English and Math.” Assembly Ballot 705 is a statewide legislative decision that changed the way students are placed into English and Math.

In the past, Pierce College used a placement test to classify what transfer level math and english classes they belong in. AB705 now requires high school information to determine this

“In this new model, it was hard for us to predict how students were going to be placed,” Berger said. “We took a guess. It turned out we needed more statistics and algebra [classes].” Classes are usually cancelled due to low enrollment. However, some classes with low enrollment may still be kept due to their importance.

Though 15 is the number of students required for a class to remain open (eight if the class is considered advanced), some classes with fewer than eight students are not cancelled.

“I decided to schedule my classes in the morning, because we have meetings and practices in the afternoons, and get home in time to do my homework,” Burton said. “Even if my class were to get dropped, I have good coaches and staff that can help me find another class to fit my schedule.” aestrada.roundupnews@gmail.com

Despite the cancelled classes, Pierce finds itself at 101% enrollment rate from last year and still above the 97% enrollment rate of the surrounding district.

Cheung said that students will play an important role in what types of produce are grown in the garden.

“What we grow could be driven by what the desires and needs are, and students could be involved in the actual growing and maintaining of the garden,” Cheung said.

Life Science Department Chair Shannon Devaney is also involved with the project. Devaney said that the garden will help alleviate the worry that food-insecure students have, and also offer healthier options to choose from.

“It's hard trying to help someone learn when you know that they don't have enough to eat, and don't have enough healthy food to eat,” Devaney said.

Students who took classes with Cheung and Abels last semester got to design systems for the potential food garden.

“We have a new system,” Abels said. “They're very little. It’s a fish pond thing that's going to provide fish nutrients to the plants.”

The location for the food garden hasn’t been decided yet, but Cheung and Abels hope that it will be in reach of the students.

“I think ideally it's somewhere that's visible,” Cheung said. “Somewhere

-Elizabeth Cheung Department Chair for Industrial Technology

that’s not super far away.”

There is no definite plan for how the food will be distributed to students, although Cheung has suggested setting up a booth that will showcase the crops.

“Like once a week, a kind of pop-up where we're out on the mall or somewhere visible with the recent harvest and people can just come and take what they want,” Cheung said.

Students who’d like to take part in the creation of the food garden can contact Elizabeth Cheung, Beth Abels or the Symbiotix Biology club for more information.