Reflecting on our Explorations

Online Food Survey

A majority of the people responding to our food survey like food less than 100 miles
Most are shopping for weekly groceries for families.
These people would go to a fast food restaurant for the accessibility
People like good foods and expect it to be yummy. We’re glad people care about the foods they eat :D!! People said they wanted their food to be grown within a 100 mile radius of where they live. People answering our questions are label readers and determine organic food by reading labels.

~ Sam

Laurel Dell

We went on a hike on Mt Tam and we had so much fun! When we got there we went to the bottom of a hill and stood in our circle to talk about watersheds and the health of the ecosystem. We went into the stream to catch and count creatures to figure out if it was healthy. I caught salamanders! We taught each other about about the place on a nature hike and I learned that moss can suck a lot of water.

~ Alex

SFPUC

The SFPUC Southeastern Plant has been around since the 1950s. They’ve been treating people’s waste for a long time. Their mission is to make wastewater as clean as possible and release it into the bay so that no animals get harmed.

LEAF’S mission there was to learn about and to understand the way water treatment works. We also watched a DVD to also observe how everything works. When we went to all the stations of the sewer, it smelled really BAD.

At the sewer, I was impressed by how much cleaner the water looked after the treatment. It was really challenging to withstand the smell of the raw sewage. I learned a lot of things. I learned about the steps in cleaning the water. I also learned that you could damage the system by flushing down dental floss. It was fun and I learned a lot!

You can get involved by going to www.sfsewers.org or call 415-554-3289

Written by Trey and partly Luke

Recology

Recology's mission is to make San Francisco a greener place. They try to make as many things reusable, recyclable, or reduce that product. They also do compost. They get almost millions of tons if not more recycling everyday and they separate them into different areas to be reused. The trash that they get can still be mostly composted or recycled but they are working on it! We went to Recology so we could be more knowledgeable about how recycling gets completed. We also toured the place and learned that you can dig in the trash and make art out of what you found. That's a cool way to reuse objects. One thing I learned, is that the bats (cubes) of recycling they organize recycling into weigh one ton each! Also, the recycling factories are very big and wide and very few people work in the space like that. All you need to do to get involved is recycle more and get smarter about it. You can also go to www.recology.com to check it out!

~ Trey

City Slicker Farms

The mission at City Slicker Farms is to help families get healthy organic food. We accomplished helping some families have something to eat by working on the farm in West Oakland. I learned how to pick a ripe plum. The ripe plums connect to one fact of life because they need the sun to grow. Get involved by volunteering and visit www.cityslikerfarms.org!

~ Noelly

SF Food Bank

The mission of the SF Food Bank is to make sure all families in SF and Marin have a daily meal. LEAF students helped the food bank fulfill their mission by sorting tomatoes and packing 1pound bags of rice out of a 100 pound bag.  I learned that 1 out of 4 people in SF goes hungry every day in San Francisco.  When I think about this fact, I feel both sad and grateful.  I feel sad knowing people do not have enough food to eat. I feel grateful because my family has all the food they want and need.  The SF Food Bank has 25,000 volunteers help them every year, but they can always use more help. Everyone can make a difference by volunteering.

~ Rou Rou

Heart of the City Farmers’ Market

Heart of the City Farmers’ Market was made over 30 years ago, in 1981, to bring in fresh, affordable produce from local farms to SF for low-income families or anybody who loves to get free handouts. It is really cool because it is run by local farmers with a passion for bringing healthy and nutritious food to this “food desert” in the “Heart of SF”. At the famers’ market, LEAF conducted a survey about food quality. Many people did not want to take the survey but a whole lot more did! It was a way to learn if the people in SF like to know what is in their food. Everybody had lots of fun and loved eating the yummy snacks. I learned that it is very hard to get high-quality produce at an affordable price but this farmers’ market makes it easy and assessable. I also learned that most people care if their food is organic or is gluten free. I am very pleased that many people care about their health. If you want to get involved you would probably have to buy a vendor to sell produce or you can help by going there and shopping for goodies. I think it is very fun for the family to go and shop there and it there are very healthy and delicious food choices!

~ Lauren

Smitten's Ice Cream

This is how Smitten's Ice Cream started. The proud owner of Smitten's, Robyn Sue Fisher, spent 5 years making a machine that would make ice cream with liquid nitrogen. This made the ice cream softer and creamier. This machine made it so the ingredients could be fresh. So she used this machine to sell ice cream around the neighborhood on a red wagon. Then, she opened a shop that was made out of one of those huge shipping containers.

What we did there was that we learned about their ice cream (what is in it, how it is made.) I t is super unique because they use liquid nitrogen to freeze it! We ate some of their ice cream, and we had fun.

~ Luke