Eastlawn Elementary

Our Edible Schoolyard: Cultivating, Collaborating, Captivating & Sustaining the Community

We at Eastlawn Elementary believe that building a strong community starts when you inspire growth, collaboration, engagement and empowerment in students; when you are able to transform lives through experiential learning and teach sustainable life skills that students are excited to bring home with them.  

    Our vision is to continue to cultivate a space that will serve as an outdoor classroom across grade levels and subject areas, where students can learn about nutrient cycling or where art projects can take on a new life.  We want to use this garden to give students the opportunity to grow and taste nutrient rich food, experiencing the whole process from seed to table, helping them to build a connection to where food in the supermarket comes from.  We want students to have a place to play and get their hands dirty, while also learning about horticulture, botany, ecology necessary to sustain a garden. We want to captivate and inspire students to believe in a new future to which they can contribute.  To make this a reality, we will work with teachers, Agricultural Extension resources, online materials and other school gardens in the area to see the garden integrated as a teaching tool across disciplines.

Our garden club/Green Team was established in 2017, which serves 3rd-5th graders. Students meet after school on Tuesdays for 90 minutes to work in the garden and do garden-related activities. This program is run by Eastlawn teachers and a class of Elon University students.

Currently, the mission of the Eastlawn Elementary School Garden is to support all students academically, socially, emotionally, and physically. The garden is a place where students can interact with nature and each other in ways that cultivate an ethic of care.