A new generation of home ec

Briana Morton’s Homewood Middle School classroom may have the standard kitchen and rows of sewing machines, but it is far from a normal home economics class. In Morton’s family and consumer sciences (FACS) class, students get to raise worms, harvest produce from the community garden and run their own juice business.

“I’ve never been traditional,” Morton said. “I’m about promoting all students, showing them how to become college- and career-ready. I’m not a ‘Susie Homemaker’ class, and not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I don’t think that the kids of today need to be prepared for that. They need to be well-rounded and prepared for all facets of life.”

Last year was Morton’s first at HMS, but she has lived in the community for more than 10 years. She previously worked at North Jefferson Middle School for six years, but decided to move to HMS to be more involved in her community and spend more time with her family. Morton said she has been “embraced” by the community, and her unconventional approach has earned support from the school and her students. Her teaching style also earned her the 2014 Outstanding New Career and Technical Teacher award from the Association for Career and Technical Education.

The focus of Morton’s FACS class is on learning financial literacy, entrepreneurship and employable skills. As students feed the worms or plan their small business, they’re also learning about investments, business plans and teamwork. Morton teaches the students basic cooking and sewing skills, too, but spices it up with contests and practical uses for these talents. Next year she will also teach fashion design, and students can enter their creations in Birmingham Fashion Week.

The big hit in Morton’s eighth-grade classes, though, is undoubtedly the Magic City Juice Bar. Morton’s students learn about entrepreneurship through running their own business, and the nearby Homewood Community Garden provided both inspiration and supplies for a juice business.

From this idea, the eighth-graders created a business plan, pricing strategy and a logo for their business, and researched ingredients for each juice recipe. The students even created the energy to blend their drinks with the help of a specially rigged bicycle blender set up by Cahaba Cycles.

“These kids are remarkable, and I can honestly say they’ve done everything on their own,” Morton said.

Morton said her students were passionate about tasting and creating the juices, as well as seeing the profits continue to fund their venture. The students only sold to teachers, but Morton hopes to expand the Magic City Juice Bar and sell to students in the cafeteria next year.

The community garden also provided inspiration for Seed to Plate, a new joint project with eighth-grade science teacher Molly Knudsen, whom Morton called her “partner in crime.” Seed to Plate is a four-day summer program for upcoming sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders to learn about sustainability, gardening and cooking. It’s free to students because of donations from the HMS Parent Teacher Organization and the Homewood City Schools Foundation.

Fifteen students participated in the first program in June. The students learned about soil health and how to test soil for pH balance and minerals. They also visited pollinator gardens at Sims Ecoscape and cooked their own lunches every day from produce harvested from the community garden. The students also made a commitment to help tend the garden throughout the year. Morton wants to see Seed to Plate expand to other grades within a few years.

From the juicing bicycle to the sewing machines, Morton wants everyone in her classes to walk away with life skills and the confidence that they can succeed in whatever their future holds.

“I hope that when they leave this class they realize they do have potential and they can pretty much do anything they want to if they put their mind to it,” Morton said. “I don’t care if they know how to make a quiche or if they know how to make an apron. I care that they know accountability, they know responsibility, they know how to work with other people.”