Forest Knolls Elementary School

Our goal is to have a vibrant Outdoor Classroom at our school where teachers engage students in hands-on explorations of plant science, nutrition, and service learning. In striving to keep our gardens as simple and low-maintenance as possible for all of our teachers and students, we will continue to focus on growing salad greens in wheelchair-accessible container gardens during the fall and spring growing seasons through six-week units that culminate with "make-your-own salad" parties. We have completed a pilot year of this "Salad Science" program with grades K-3 in partnership with the Audubon Naturalist Society's GreenKids program. We hope that funding from Whole Kids Foundation will allow us to add a wheelchair-accessible seating area for students so that teachers can more easily conduct a variety of lessons in the Outdoor Classroom year-round. We will also provide more training for teachers to encourage them to use the Outdoor Classroom space in creative ways, and we will expand our efforts to incorporate service learning by donating salad greens to a local food bank. Our ultimate goal is that each grade will take ownership of a special project to complete in the Outdoor Classroom each year.

This program is supported by .