Upper Elementary

Maybeury Elementary's Growing Minds garden aims to illuminate students' understanding about food--where it comes from, how it is grown, and how essential it is for a healthy body. The garden is Maybeury's Wellness Committee’s core effort to improve the school's food culture. Through hands-on experiences, we seek to excite students, engage teachers, and educate parents on the benefits and joys of healthy eating.

The goals of the greenhouse/garden are:
- To teach students how to grow their own food
- To allow students hands-on experience with plants and the needs of plants
- To develop civic minded students by having them grow food that will be shared with community food banks
- To build up an awareness of nature and its importance in our daily lives
- To help enhance students' awareness of world needs and how we must help one another in order to survive

The WITS Tower Garden will be the primary feature of the WITS Green for Kids program, with the goal of increasing environmental awareness and develop sustainable practices in public schools. Because the Tower Gardens are mobile, students can connect to nature anywhere in their school, year-round. The Tower Gardens will be featured in the WITS Green Labs, hands-on educational classes on sustainability topics; used to support the WITS Culinary Labs; and also made available to teachers for use in their curricula.

This garden will mainly support science and nutrition for all of our TK-8th grade students at Belle Haven. Additionally, it will support literacy, math, art and social studies for all classroom teachers. An edible school garden will provide a place where children, and the community, can learn about and interact with nature, while learning the values of growing organic food locally. In the academic sphere, the program will incorporate science curricula, interdisciplinary studies, and gardening and maintenance activities, serving as a living laboratory and extension of the classroom.