Garden Classrooms

North Florida School of Special Education

The goal of the Garden Project, Ready, Set, Grow! is to provide a hands-on learning opportunity for our students with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities, ranging from 6 to 13 years of age. The children will be involved in all aspects of the garden from soil preparation, planting of seeds and veggie starts, watering and the ongoing care as the plants mature.

Winter Park Elementary School

Our garden was started in 2009 with a $3,500 grant. The initial goal was to just establish a garden. Now, our garden has grown in size and the goals have changed:

1) The third grade science curriculum focuses on plants. The students are taking a major role in planning what crops are best for our area, learning the importance of fertile soil and how to care for crops from seedlings to produce. The third graders then teach the younger grades what they have learned through their research. They also model appropriate gardening techniques as they work with the younger students.

Bennetto Elementary School

Grub Club is for children aged 6-14 who attend Bennetto school and/or live in the North end of Hamilton. It is a safe place where kids can meet each week and discover how to grow their own organic vegetables in the garden, learn how to cook healthy meals and take part in a vareity of physical activity programs (which they would often otherwise be unable to afford). This dynamic program sees that needs are met in the areas of food security, recreation and social inclusion and gives children and their families, skills needed to help build a healthy life. The children

Transitions school of ISD 916

Two schools involved include: the Transitions School, a 7-12 Special Education for 80 students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD) and other neurobiological disorders and the WELS North Summer Program (a Special Education program for 18-21 year olds). Their broad goals are to enable students to internalize positive values necessary for positive life outcomes, while making progress with specific academic outcomes. We see our School Garden as at the core of each school

Tinc Road School

Our primary goals are to provide students with the hands-on learning experience of growing vegetables, reinforce/apply concepts learned in class and increase their daily vegetable intake. By stressing this, these healthier food choices will lower BMI, which for our 1st graders starts at 4% and climbs steadily to 15% of 5th graders being overweight. Children who grow and harvest their own food are more likely to try it and make healthier choices. The students will also learn about organic and sustainable farming and how to protect these resources.

Montessori School of Louisville

Montessori School of Louisville is planning a garden based upon the Edible Classroom Project. The garden will be developed in a green space behind the school which contains a few much-loved raised vegetable beds. Because of the success and interest in these vegetable beds, we want to expand our garden into a complete outdoor classroom. This outdoor classroom will be an extension of our indoor learning in every major subject area. Additionally, it will provide a means for engagement with the local community, by extending the use of the gardens to nearby neighborhoods.

Mountain Road School

The goal of our garden is to immerse our students in the natural process of growing food and working in partnership with the earth in a balanced and nurturing way. Mountain Road School has recently renovated an historic home which has presented us with opportunities and challenges. The opportunity before us is the creation of garden space- designed by teachers, parents and students in collaboration. The challenge comes from years of corn crops grown in the soil.

Morris Elementary School

The overall goal of the school garden is to be able to teach the younger students the importance of eating healthy food. With the obesity problem growing each year in the United States and especially in Oklahoma we must do everything we can to combat it. In Morris we have a very successful vo-ag program that currently has over 200 students (approxiamately 25%) but it is only available to the older students. Having a school garden the younger students can take pride in what they grow and we hope that they are more likely to try and enjoy foods that they grew.

Sligo Creek Elementary

The goal of the school garden is that it will become the centerpiece of a new outdoor classroom, which will be located in an enclosed courtyard shared between Sligo Creek Elementary School and Silver Spring International Middle School. The space currently houses lawns and some plants but has not been consistently used as an instructional resource. The garden will afford our students the opportunity to see and personally experience plant lifecycles (and associated lifecycles of animals that depend on them) with their own senses rather than simply reading about them in books.

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