Experiential Learning Tastes Good: Nutrition Lessons from Sicily to School Gardens

What if the best classroom is a kitchen—or a garden? UT Nutritional Sciences professor Michele Hockett Cooper takes us from the sun-drenched tables of Sicily to school gardens right here in Austin, exploring how hands-on food experiences shape the way we learn, eat, and connect. A delicious conversation about nutrition, culture, and the unexpected places learning happens.

Originally from northern Montana, Michele Hockett Cooper brings experience across a wide range of agricultural and food systems, from lifelong work on her family’s large-scale wheat and cattle operation to supporting local producers through organizations including Green Gate Farms, the New Farm Institute, and the Sustainable Food Center Farmers’ Markets. She holds a master’s degree in Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies from Michigan State University and has worked with farmers and students around the world, from Malawi and Kazakhstan to Montana and Texas. 

After receiving teacher training as a Peace Corps volunteer and TEFL educator in Kazakhstan, Cooper joined The University of Texas at Austin as a project coordinator and lead educator for the TX Sprouts research project, where she taught gardening, nutrition, and healthy living lessons to elementary school students across Central Texas and helped develop sustainability programs for school gardens. Today, she directs the EdEN Intern Program, which places UT nutrition students in local elementary school gardens to teach hands-on garden and nutrition lessons while supporting public health education and school garden initiatives. Cooper also serves as adjunct faculty at Austin Community College and as UT’s Peace Corps Prep Faculty Advisor, and she is passionate about connecting education, food systems, farming, and community health.