Garden Classrooms

Our garden goals are to provide our students with hands on opportunities to learn about where their food comes from, how their food choices impact their health and environment, and how to nourish themselves. In the garden students will learn the cycles of food production, share fresh picked and prepared snacks, and feel empowered to make healthier food choices.
We see a lot of highly processed nutrient poor food in our student

The garden will benefit the students, as well as the community. Gardening will provide a sense of responsibility for students. The students will develop a sense of ownership as they see their hard work pay off in the fall when they harvest their crops. The garden will provide opportunities for parents and students to work together whether the job be planting, weeding, or harvesting. The garden will provide many educational opportunities for the teachers to involve their students. The garden will become an outdoor classroom for cross curricular activities.

We need drip irrigation! This grant would make it possible to be more water wise. Our garden also needs shade. We have a lovely area in the middle of the garden with picnic tables that operates as our outdoor kitchen, but it isn't usable in the middle of the day when the sun is right on the garden (good for the plants, not for hot plastic tables and kids).

Thomas Swift's garden will be a place for growing--growing healthy vegetables, community, curriculum, outdoor experiences, working together, social skills, non-verbal communication, education around nature, and experiences in play not isolated to metal, rubber, and plastic structures. Children have little time for free play anymore, and when children do have free time, it's often spent inside in front of the television or computers. Childhood and outdoor play are no longer synonymous--today, many children live what one play authority has referred to as a childhood of imprisonment.