The garden offers both students and teachers the opportunity to explore and interact with the natural environment in multiple disciplines including math social studies art and theater. Through expansion of the schoolyard vegetable beds and the addition of the potato towers more children will experience multiple lessons in the gardens (the existing six beds proved inadequate for the school community in 2011) and we will have more produce to contribute to our partnering food-shelf.
Our garden is located at a safety net health clinic has 65,000 patient visits a year. The clinic serves Pediatric, Ob/Gyn and Adult Medicine patients. The garden provides fresh produce to the clinics at no charge as well as providing learning opportunities for all the neighborhood. There are regular workdays for all volunteers with special times for instruction on gardening. Also there are cooking classes for all ages.
Our Farm to School programs makes connections between our food system and our school system. We work directly with school districts to procure and promote locally grown foods. Our program is working to increase the use of local foods, encourage our children to make healthy eating choices, and support regional farmers.
Our garden is presently growing an extensive array of vegetables and fruit and has been sustainable since 2010. We are teaching our students how to grow healthy food and how to cook healthy food so that they can lead a healthy lifestyle with an emphasis on disease prevention,resulting from our fast food culture. Lessons on awareness to the importance of biodiversity in our food supply and the sustainability of our soil and water supplies is another way we hope to educate our kids.
Our goals are to create a space for students to engage in hands on learning to create a program led by and sustained by students and to create a program that engages our students in the larger community. The grant will help our school become more environmentally responsible and create an innovative learning space that will help students who have trouble learning in a traditional school environment thrive. It will also help our student leaders learn leadership skills.
At Arthur Ashe Charter School students eat their lunch while gazing out a picture frame of gorgeous, native and exotic shade plants, showcasing the school's kitchen herb and flower garden.
As one of the newest health services offered by St. Mary's Health System, the Nutrition Center works to improve the nutritional status of all Maine residents. The Center strives to be a community resource and works towards promoting overall community wellness and providing all people with access to nutritious food, the opportunity to learn and implement healthy and safe eating practices, the support to make lifestyle changes that reduce the risk of nutrition related diseases and the ability to promote personal food security through growing one’s own food.
Thousands of young Americans have dedicated themselves to reforming the food chain, from field to table, and of all the programs that have emerged to channel that energy and idealism, FoodCorps is the most inspiring. - Michael Pollan, Author
The garden was established the spring of 2012 my consumer science teacher, Ms. Friest. Goodrell Middle School helps students connect with their inner chef and gardener. Throughout the year students participate in a after school program entitled Dig In! . The program connects the garden to fork concept with students growing, cooking and eating Goodrell grown produce. Goodrell Middle School was also a site for National Farm to School Month, where students tried out locally grown sweet potato fries.
Our school garden is brand new this spring, 2013! Our garden coordinator is a first grade teacher, and she is working with Farm Bureau and our county's FoodCorps Service Member to develop the space and involve different classes and grade levels. Soon, our first graders will fill our new raised beds alongside 4th and 5th graders at our school. We can't wait to get started!
