Kindergarten

Pioneer Elementary School

Our goal is to build a raised-bed vegetable garden so Pioneer students can have consistent access to hands-on outdoor environmental education experiences over the course of their elementary school career. Over the last ten years, environmental education (in the form of Outdoor School and field trips) has been eliminated from our district curriculum. We want to create a school garden to provide teachers with an accessible, engaging way to integrate environmental education into their curriculum.

OJ Neighbours Elementary

Though our community is a rural one, the students at this school are within the city limits and many are not exposed to gardening or farming. Though we have successfully launched a garden already, this grant will allow us to expand the project and increase access to fresh vegetables for students in our programs. We will increase opportunities to convene partners to deliver nutrition education, while still preserving one component of the existing program (selling the produce from our garden at the local Farmer's Market).

Milton Avenue School

Our goal is to to broaden the children's eating habits by planting, maintaining and harvesting a garden thus, teaching them through a hands on approach.

Crieve Hall Elementary School

Our vision for the Crieve Hall Elementary School Learning Garden is to provide a dynamic, interactive, hands-on learning experience that supports the sciences and Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (e.g., questioning, critical thinking) at every grade level. This garden will allow for class time outside while conducting science experiments, planting and tasting, and discussing, writing or drawing observations.

Lemon Road Elementary School

This year our school grew from 300 to 500 students. This grant will make it possible for us to build 6 new raised beds for our additional classes so that we can continue to accommodate 100% of our students in the gardens. Our Discovery Gardens are in their 10th year of operation and are fully integrated into our school culture and curriculum. Specific examples of ways in which our students and community interact with the gardens are given in question #11 below.

Highland Elementary School

Historically, Highland County residents grew and preserved all their own produce from home gardens; now these traditions are dying out with an aging population. With a full-service grocery store over an hour away, 37% of residents have limited access to healthy foods. Our goal is to revive homegrown traditions by using our recently renovated greenhouse and raised-bed garden to provide healthy foods for students and an environmental outlet for classroom instruction.

South Pointe Elementary

The SPE Children's Garden is in its fifth year. Our goal is to model and practice sustainability and conservation for both our students and our South Beach community. We will do this through replacing our aging and vulnerable plastic raised beds with permanent cedar beds. Additionally, we will replace our antiquated watering system with an integrated drip line system for the new beds.

The Altamont School

The Altamont School realizes the importance of educating students on global issues because they will most likely be the ones trying to solve them. This school year, every teacher at Altamont must incorporate the study of water into their curriculum. The School plans to adopt one global issue each year, and the garden will be a natural fit for several of the issues.

Cowlishaw Elementary School

Our garden's number one goal is to educate students about how food is grown. Many of our children spend a lot of time indoors, and many of them were amazed that carrots and potatoes grow under the ground. They were astounded that worms lived in the dirt in our garden. Some of the students eat few fruits and vegetables, and yet when they've grown their own veggies, they are eager to taste and enjoy what they've grown. Our gardening students learn from one another and teach new members what they have learned. From a science standpoint, learning to garden teaches students about life cycles.

Berwyn Heights Elementary School

Our students would like to grow a larger variety of vegetables. Currently, we have only grown greens, short carrots and radishes due to the depth of our soil, which is roughly 4-5 inches. In addition, due to the limited space, we are not able to accommodate all the classes that are interested in participating in the garden. We would like to expand and enhance our vegetable gardens by creating raised bed, which will give us better soil, as well as a much deeper base. Along with the raised beds, we would like to build a three bin composting system to continue to enhance our soil.

Pages