Garden Classrooms

Nava Elementary School

The garden at Nava Elementary School is a space for students to learn about the food system, environmental sustainability, and the life sciences. Learning in the garden scaffolds the learning that takes place in the classroom.

Our current school garden is small, and includes four raised beds with season extension capabilities and irrigation, and a straw compost. Twenty saplings were also planted by students on school grounds in the spring of 2012 as a service learning project on Earth Day.

Naramake Elementary School

The primary goal of our garden is to create an awareness for students of where their food comes from, and encourage them to eat healthy foods.

All 4th grade students have been involved in the Youth Farmers Market (YFM) program since last summer. Our 4th grade teaching staff, and Norwalk Grows, have developed a curriculum that uses a Youth Farmers Market model as a teaching tool. Students engage in curriculum based learning in science, math and literacy while working in the garden. This Fall, we had one market that was a huge success and sold out in 20 minutes!

Mountain Christian School

1. Students at Mountain Christian School will work together with the two school coordinators to develop a garden that will grow vegetables, fruits, and herbs. We will also plant fruit trees around our new school building which should be completed before Fall 2013. The students will plant the gardens and raise, harvest, and eat the crops. The two school coordinators will develop science curriculum to include nutrition, plant growth, gardening skills and local planting and harvesting seasons.

2. Additional activities we would like to include:

Morada Middle School

We are working in conjunction with CNGF (California Native Grant Foundation) to create a 21000 sq. ft. Biodiversity Science Life Lab. CNGF is designing, planning and helping us to implement this garden to use as an interactive educational ongoing project, to be used along with the California Science Standards.

Mesa Preparatory Academy

The goals of the garden include helping students become aware of our natural resources and their limitations, raising awareness for health and nutrition by eating fruits and vegetables each day, raising awareness for environmental issues such as reducing fossil fuel emissions by growing food locally which decreases the need for transportation of goods across states, giving students the skills to grow plants and take care of land which will help them develop pride in themselves, developing a long-lasting bond among the students with the Earth, and finally sharing and spreading the lessons an

Mendez Middle School

Our primary goal is to educate the community on healthy food choices and how to produce healthy food as cost effectively as possible. Mendez Middle School is located in the Dove Springs Community, which has the highest obesity rate in the City of Austin. The area has no farmer's market in surrounding neighborhoods, and the area is a food desert, lacking adequate access to grocery stores for residents.

Meadow Glen Elementary School

We want to start a garden that encourages a healthly lifestyle to the school and surrounding community. Our health and wellness committee wants to promote and educate a healthy diet by providing an opportunity for the students, faculty, and parents to learn about gardening, sparking an interest in vegetables and fruits of our garden, and educating the healthy benefits of various fruits and vegetables in our garden.

McKinley Elementary School

The goal of our school garden is to introduce the students as well as some parents and teachers to healthy food choices and the process involved in growing, nurturing, and cultivating healthy foods. We also hope to educate the students about which types of plants may be invasive species which could damage the crops that they are growing and cultivating. This grant will allows us to continue our mission of educating McKinley Elementary School students about the natural world as well as nutrition and healthy food choices.

McClure Elementary

McClure Elementary's Watch Us Grow Garden will enrich its students' k-6 education by incorporating instruction in financial planning, nutrition, civic engagement, environmental awareness, and violence and bullying prevention. The Watch Us Grow committee will guide classes through seasonal units designed to help teachers reinforce their Common Core Standards as set forth by the Oklahoma Department of Education.

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