Lower Elementary

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.

Birchview School

The Birchview Elementary's greenhouse/garden has a two goals. The first goal would be to help introduce and educate students to where their food comes from and how it is grown. Many children today go to the grocery store and buy their foods with their parents or caregivers, but they never really learn where it is actually coming from.

Downes (John R.) Elementary

The goals of the Downes garden program (DIG - Downes Involvement Garden) are to connect science learning with other parts of the curriculum including math, reading, writing, health, and physical education. The garden brings real-world, authentic learning to math, science, literacy, and health classes! In addition to academic learning, gardening allows students to develop confidence, patience, cooperative learning skills, and a love for nature.

Village Elementary School

We have many goals in mind for the Village Elementary School garden. It will be used to help introduce and reinforce lessons across a range of academic subjects. It will foster a dialogue about eating nutritious food and adopting other healthy habits. It will facilitate teamwork among students, parents, staff and community partners. And it will be a teaching tool for the community at large, to encourage our neighbors to reap the benefits of planting their own backyard gardens.

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