Garden Classrooms

Phoenix House Academy

We have 4 goals for the garden: 1) Teach students from underserved communities about healthy eating and benefits of including fruits and vegetables in their diets; 2) Provide high-quality nutritional food to students & staff at the Academy Phoenix House facilities and community; 3) Offer educational therapeutic & recreational programs based on horticultural activities; & 4) Build students' self-esteem and responsibility as they learn to care for the garden.

Perspectives IIT Math and Science Academy

The goal of the garden is to involve and expose the community to the natural processes involved in gardening to provide the knowledge necessary to grow and maintain their own urban garden. As the garden grows we hope to supplement school lunches with freshly grown produce from the garden. Ultimately students will have the knowledge to grow and care for their own personal garden providing themselves and their families with healthy food.

Pepper Middle School

Our goal for the grant is to expand and bolster our garden programming better integrating them into the schools and community. We plan to use the funds to buy supplies to increase the educational value of the gardens for students and community members with artistic signage and outdoor gathering spaces. We plan to increase the functionality of the gardens by purchasing composting equipment youth-appropriate gardening tools and seed-starting materials.

Penrose Elementary

HPC plans to assemble and install an indoor growing lab at Penrose to showcase indoor gardening and seed starting techniques in order to enhance the teachers' ability to meet science-based academic standards. Another primary interest of HPC is to provide exposure to the health benefits derived from the garden in both the indoor and outdoor context.

Penny Road Elementary School

Our school's Edible Garden provides an opportunity for our students to get their hands in the dirt and watch food grow. While doing this they are able to donate the food to those who need it and are sometimes in their classes. This grant will help the garden continue its presence at Penny Road Elementary School and expand its ability to produce food to be donated to programs like Plant a Row for the Hungry. Building connections to nature and cultivating a generous spirit are our main goals.

Pembroke Elementary

Pembroke Elementary is a nationally recognized School of Character and accordingly public service is included in our school's mission statement. For more than 20 years our students have participated in Pembroke's annual Harvest Hike gathering canned goods for local food banks. If Pembroke is chosen as a grant recipient we would like to expand our garden and donate fresh produce to local food kitchens in addition to the over 1 000 pounds of canned goods we donate annually.

Pecan Park Elementary

We would like to expand the garden enough that 14 classes can participate in the spring. We would also like to build a green house so that the students can keep growing plants throughout the colder months of the school year. We've seen how beneficial the experiential aspects of the garden are for the students understanding of subject matter- it would be a huge asset to every students' comprehension if their hands were getting dirty.

Peaslee Neighborhood Center Inc.

Our goal is twofold: to create and implement a botany curriculum emphasizing diversity and adaptations for use with preschool aged students in a garden setting and to gain horticultural experience maintaining a children's garden; utilize our small space creatively so we can maximize its potential while expanding growing season and yield.

Patterson Literature Magnet

The goal is to have Nutrition classes for school children using the garden beds and art projects as the medium of instruction. The classes will be conducted in the garden by the Teacher. The garden presents a unique opportunity for an ultimate partnership between the academic and the service sectors of the community.It has the capacity to improve nutritional outcomes for young children enhance the classroom experience for our students serve as a demonstration and teaching site for our campus.

Parsons Elementary School

The Parsons was developed and is maintained by the 4th grade Honor Society. The kids have sold their harvest to buy supplies for heart pillows. These heart pillows were created and assembled by the Honor Society then given to the Jackson Madison Cardiac Unit. This donation will help the heart patients there. Other harvests from our garden have been donated food banks and given as gifts.

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