Garden Classrooms

North Middle School

North Middle School's Community Garden was first established as a partnership between Aurora Public Schools and the BRANCH. BRANCH is a University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus multidisciplinary student organization dedicated to becoming a sustained partner with Aurora communities by promoting, supporting, and implementing programs that encourage Aurora community members to take an active role in their own health and the health of their community.

D.C. Virgo Preparatory Academy

Our goals are to obtain the necessary resources to enhance and sustain our existing school garden that was built on the campus of D.C. Virgo Preparatory Academy last year by expanding community participation in the garden during the school year and summer months and increasing the hands on educational opportunities that we can provide for our students. When our school was opened last year, we began with 120 6th grade students who were all involved in the school garden.

Battle Academy for Teaching and Learning

The goal of the Battle Academy rooftop garden is to educate students in real world gardening skills, give them opportunities to learn about preparing and eating healthy food, and contributing to the good of our school community by adding to the school yard and landscape of the garden. The garden itself was created to be a learning space for all student Kindergarten, Lower Elementary, at Battle but the garden club was created so students could play a larger role in our school community.

Kathryn Winn Primary School

The gardens themselves are the cornerstone of the Kathryn Winn Environmental Gardens; however, the program has additional facets as well. A cafeteria recycling program that has grown into a school-wide recycling movement is a complementary piece, beginning with the simple goal of collecting paper to recycle and now including recycling initiatives to collect paper products, milk cartons from the cafeteria, plastic wrappers, aluminum products, and food scraps. The food scraps from the cafeteria are composted using a vermicomposting system located by the gardens.

Knob Noster High School

The goal of our school garden is a simple one: to help build a stronger bond between our school and our community. One of our district goals is to improve the relationship that our school has with parents and community members. This garden could be a helpful tool in allowing us to achieve our goal. By planting this garden we are not only educating our students on where their food comes from, but we are opening up an opportunity to bring the community to our school and share in a joint project. This project will also allow us to strengthen the relationship between our schools.

Rio Rosales Elementary

The goal of the garden is primarily twofold. First, the students would learn from where plant-based, whole food comes. The reality for many of our students is that they consume pre-packaged, processed foods on a daily basis. At a young age, we want to instill in our students that good, healthy food comes from the earth. We would love for students to be able to see the stages of food growth and care for the plants. Secondly, as a by product of learning about how food is grown, we want to teach our students responsibility.

Wells Branch Elementary

Via the garden children explore topics involving environmental science, biology, conservation, and ecology. The garden provides a practical, hands-on application of these concepts that are couched with information on health and nutrition. The garden is used by teachers to take their classes and use for learning practical applications in math, science, and social studies.

John B. Cary Elementary

Our school population increased this year from 200 to 320. This grant would enable us to increase the square footage of the garden from 105 square feet to 165 square feet. With this additional gardening area, we would be able to increase the number of students tasting healthy foods from the garden from 200 to 320. We would also be able to supplement the student lunch with a salad bar from our garden for at least 3 meals. This grant would enable us to add a rain barrel to our garden which would conserve water and decrease runoff.

Ecole Entre-lacs

Our garden's goal is very simple: to provide a hands-on experience for all of our students (from the preschool to the grade 8 students) and to help introduce them to the concept of farming in town, to provide them with a place to gather outside and discover how to grow your own food. The garden will provide fresh produce to serve a salad bar for our students in May, June and September and will help a few different families in need every summer.

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