Garden Classrooms

The goals include beautifying a blank landscape with garden boxes, providing fresh produce for the students to taste, the enrichment of the educational experience by supplying a hands-on, project-based learning environment, to include the surrounding community by scheduling speakers and input from area businesses, involving our cafeteria/food staff for additional nutritional data, and planting perennials that will provide years of sustainable garden plants.

As part of a non profit dedicated to creating a thriving local food system, education and demonstration about how food gets from 'seed to table' is an extremely important lesson. The garden at GrowFood Carolina gives students the opportunity to learn about soil, seeds, plants, and foods. When the student then learns about the activities at the warehouse, they start understand the full cycle of our food system, so they not only appreciate how to grow fresh fruit and veg, but also what to look for in their grocery store.

Two courtyard gardens and a fruit tree orchard are currently used and maintained within Thomas Stone High School campus. The Senior Courtyard supports five raised garden beds that grow a variety of flowers, vegetables, herbs, and medicinal plants. It contains two themed garden beds: a Korean vegetable garden, and Three Sisters vegetable garden. The courtyard is handicapped accessible, and is used for experimentation and demonstration.

The Adolescent Day Treatment Program advocates for and serves adolescents and their families throughout the Portland metro area and rural areas as well. Each day we provide schooling and mental health treatment for 25-32 children and their families in Tigard, Oregon. Our garden goals include curriculum integration, horticultural therapy, nutrition focused lunch program, and community outreach to teach nutrition and sustainability. Our garden and lunch groups are supported by a hands-on learning process focusing on food and our relationship to it.