Garden Classrooms

North Middlesex Regional High School

Our community garden’s overall goal is to combat hunger and food insecurity in our community while raising awareness of these issues by hosting events in our school and in our community. In addition we offer a level of education for our students by teaching about sustainability and organic practices. With the help of this grant we will further our gardens sustainability by building additional raised beds, purchasing organic seeds and seedlings, and expanding our aquaponics/hydroponics system.

Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School

Our goal is to develop a school garden that will serve as an outdoor classroom where students can learn about nutrition and wellness. Last year, students and staff members cleaned up and repaired an empty roof area to create a vibrant community gathering place. We also planted herbs, vegetables and flowers. Although the garden was small, the experience was transformative for the students. Many students shared that the experience helped them feel more connected to the earth, make better choices about eating and feel a greater sense of community.

Amos P. Godby

To teach both aquaponics and traditional gardening to low income students to raise vegetables and herbs and show them how to bring nutritious, organic food to their dinner tables. We will bring awareness of urban "farming" on an individual basis using aquaponics principles to our community's inner city. With aquaponics, the fish excretion in the water from the fish “pond” provides nutrients for the plants. In turn, clean oxygenated water is returned to the pond. The system could be big or small, indoors or outdoors, with the result being organic vegetables or herbs.

Crystal Lake Central HS

Our goal for the Crystal Lake Central High School garden is to use the hydroponic gardening system to teach students about the way of the future in terms of growing fruits and vegetables. Many of today’s greenhouse vegetables are grown through a hydroponic system. Our goal is to use the grant money to continue to add more components to the garden.

Palm Beach Gardens Community High School

There is a local need,across the community,for healthy foods which currently can be expensive and unobtainable. The requested funds will improve our existing program by allowing expansion of our current Culinary garden. We hope to produce and harvest more vegetables,experiment with alternative growing mediums (hydroponic) and provide a larger arena for more student workers. The produce would be harvested and used for our weekly "Gator Bites Cafe" luncheons and full advantage taken to prepare and create healthy ,appealing and nutritious additions to our daily "specials".

Tamanend Middle School

Our school installed a garden at the end of the 2013-14 school year. We enlisted the help of an Eagle Scout to help us with this project. Although the structure of the garden is in place and we planted a crop in the spring, there is a lot of work to make the garden better. We need to renovate the beds with proper soil and create a compost system to improve the quality of the fruit and vegetables grown. In addition, we are in need of an irrigation system to complete the structure of the gardens.

Hector Garcia Middle School

Our current garden is in existing flower beds that are not meant for growing vegetables and fruits. Receiving this grant will allow construction for vegetable garden beds. Constructing several garden beds will increase student involvement with our current garden program. We would like to use this grant to build as many beds as possible along with set up of a few rain barrels to harvest rain for the garden. The goal of our garden is to gain more participation from students, teachers, and parents.

Weaver Middle School

Weaver Middle School's garden goal is to educate students about where their delicious, nutritious food comes from. In addition, we want more hands-on activities for students. A school garden would, hand's down, aid in the lack of nutrients they are currently missing out on by providing a space for them to plant, water, nurture, and be amazed as their specific vegetable blossoms. We could incorporate language arts by having them write about their findings. We could incorporate science by learning the entire process - start to finish.

Colby Grade School

The primary goal of the school garden is to improve the healthy eating environment in the school and community by increasing and expanding access to a variety of healthy, garden-fresh vegetables. As Colby Grade School implements a new curriculum, “Agriculture in the Classroom,” incorporating a garden would be a logical enhancement. The program involving students participating in the After School Program (ASP) in school garden work would be a program enrichment activity for the 2015-16 school years.

College of the Desert Early Childhood Edu

3 goals:
*Provide fresh, nutritious food service to 145 children.
*As a teaching lab school demonstrate the feasibility and benefits of school gardens.
*Provide hands-on training to College of the Desert students in a variety of areas including early childhood education, nutrition, agriculture, culinary arts.
 This kitchen garden will produce an average of 7 pounds of vegetables per day year round for children’s meals which will amount to 25% of current food meal needs.

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