Garden Classrooms

We implement an emergent curriculum that promotes creativity and exploration and emphasizes the development of children’s sense of self and social development. Although we are a Montessori school we also strive to incorporate other philosophies such as the Reggio Emilia approach and play-based methods. Our approach to education comes directly from an absolute love of children and childhood. We believe that every child is capable and competent.

In 2017, Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District (TBAISD) piloted the TBAISD Farm to School program to provide school specific Farm to School support and capacity-building to select elementary schools within Northwest Michigan.

"Inspiring and Preparing Young People to Live Consciously with Themselves, One Another, and the Planet."

Learning is Alive: We pursue education fearlessly, knowing that children are naturally “switched-on” when they are learning about something they love. We strive to cultivate and sustain that in-the-moment exuberance.

I have been a volunteer at Mary Farmar Elementary School Garden as their coordinator and Liberty High School Greenhouse for six years.  Both schools have the same mission:  to encourage young people to learn how to live sustainably by caring for diverse and productive gardens. Students eat what they grow in the garden and develop a posititive relationship with healthy food and the natural environment.  All of the activities in the gardens involve hands on participation.

Our garden is an educational, edible, student-driven garden. Park is a Title I school; with 70% of our families considered socioeconomically disadvantaged. Our mission is to introduce new organic food to our students; many live in food deserts within San Mateo. Our garden motto is “we love dirt and dirt is good”. Many  students here have never seen strawberries grow on the vine nor picked tomatoes, squash, or tomatillos.

At San Diego Jewish Academy our mission is to challenge minds, inspire purpose and explore possibilities. Levana's Garden is a 1/4 acre site that includes native plants, the seven species of trees from the Old Testament, 11 raised vegetable beds, 1 large in ground bed and a multitude of orchard trees. We also recently have added a flock of 4 hens to the garden. We have a school cafeteria that makes the majority of it's lunches from scratch, and is able to use the fresh ingredients from our garden.

At San Diego Jewish Academy our mission is to challenge minds, inspire purpose and explore possibilities. Levana's Garden is a 1/4 acre site that includes native plants, the seven species of trees from the Old Testament, 11 raised vegetable beds, 1 large in ground bed and a multitude of orchard trees. We also recently have added a flock of 4 hens to the garden. We have a school cafeteria that makes the majority of it's lunches from scratch, and is able to use the fresh ingredients from our garden.

Mangia FA Studio is a small but active social enterprise aims to support schools, local governments and Non Profit Organizations who are keen to start school gardens, planning lessons and community events. We supports those practitioners with teaching materials and hands-on teacher training workshops such as, farm calendar that follows school curriculum, insects’ index in ecological farm or rice/sugar/honey tasting workshop…etc. So far, our team has worked with 2 NPOs, 4 local governments and more than 10 elementary schools in Taiwan.

The name of our program is Fresh Growth Gardens. We've started by working with three schools in the Bay Area (San Francisco, Oakland, and Vallejo). We started on a vision to stoke children's curiosity for the outdoor world with a focus on at risk communities. Through our efforts we hope to inspire young people to live impactful and healthy lives while positively contributing to our planet and communities. The opportunity we identified is that many of the funds for the state of California that were directed towards outdoor education starting in the late nineties have evaporated.

We are a non-profit organization to promote the enjoyment of a lifestyle that aims to establish resource recycling in the local community. Our activities include, among others teaching how to recycle our kitchen garbage and other waste generated from our yards that is, how to turn them into compost and communicating the joy of composting. By making use of compost we produced or collected in neiboring areas, we grow vegetables in community gardens. 

We focus on following 5 issues for a sustainable lifestyle in community you live.