The primary goals for this garden are all educational. Our vision is to foster and prepare an academic community of aware students that will become the future stewards of our environment. This garden will be incorporated into several courses offered in our curriculum including; Plant Systems, Agricultural Products, Environmental Chemistry, and Environmental Science. The hands on act of testing, experimenting, growing, and working the soil is vital to our approach of education through authentic experiences.
The goal of this project is to improve and expand our school's efforts to raise awareness of healthy food alternatives to our students, parents, and general members of our community. The grant will allow us to improve the quality of our previous efforts, increasing the size, diversity and yield of our crops. This will help us to teach a younger generation how to be self sufficient by exposing them to healthy food alternatives and positive outdoor activities.
On October 29, 2012, during Hurricane Sandy our town, Highlands, New Jersey, suffered previously never experienced damage to homes, businesses, trees, shrubs, and surrounding landscapes. It is our hope that constructing our garden and watching it
The Desert Oasis School Garden has just recently turned a quarter acre corner of our school campus into an outdoor classroom. Our garden project will benefit 275 mentally challenged and physically disabled students at Desert Oasis High School. In addition, 35 members of the Desert Oasis H.S. Earth Club will work alongside our special needs students in maintaining the school garden. Gardening offers our students hands-on, experiential learning opportunities in a wide array of subjects, including Science, Math, Language Arts, Pre-Vocation and Nutrition.
We anticipate that the Lima School Garden's goal will be multifold; first it will serve as a learning center for students in several academic and social content areas. Teachers will use the garden as a living classroom and will work with the Genesis Center Culinary Instructor to plan lessons that touch upon sustainability, history, and a host of other topics. As a community agency that serves adult students we understand the importance of addressing individual learning styles and intelligences. The garden will also serve as a positive community asset.
In our first year (2011-2012), we started with three 10 square foot raised garden beds to practice managing a sustainable community garden. We did not have an outside water source, so relied on filling 5 gallon buckets to get us through a dry, very hot summer. Since then, we re-established an outside water faucet, enabling us to triple the size of our garden. We now have 9 raised beds, 10 square feet each. Our next goal is to expand our garden, building a greenhouse in an interior courtyard area that can be accessible to students throughout the winter.
The goal of this garden is to help feed the Refugee stuents attending DACS and their families. The State of GA is one the states designated as a resetllment area for Refugees. Clarkston GA is the town most Refugees are resettled due to public transporation, climate, low housing cost and job opportunities. Over 100 different languages are spoken in this town. Clarkston is dubbed the Ellis Island of the South. It's the most diverse town in the US. Currently, approximately 10,000 Refugees residing in this town.
The primary goal of this project is to be able to reduce the sodium utilization being offered through the School Lunch Program. Several other goals I have set include learning how to dry and preserve plants, and expose kids to ideas on how salt, fat and sugar can be reduced when cooking foods at home. To achieve these goals, the premise of the project will be to start, develop and sustain a school herb garden.
2014 Goals:
Create a garden harvest to lunch sample table for two 'veggies' in May/June and two in Sept.
Incorporate school garden harvest, (e.g. kale chips, carrot prep) into thriving culinary arts program.
Incorporate horticulture into the science curriculum.
Rejuvenate weed one small, over-grown area and cultivate.
Strengthen WSHS' school garden by engaging in year round activity.
Improve student health and nutrition education by offering fresh vegetables.
