Lakeland Elementary / Middle School

Lakeland Elementary/Middle School sees its garden as being both an educational space and a community space. Our current garden space was created with help from teachers, students, parents, community members, Master Gardeners, and a grant from the Office of Sustainability, and was used by grades 1st through 6th for science class. We would like to expand this, and envision a bigger garden that is a space both where all of our students will learn outside of the confines of a standard classroom and gain knowledge that is best learned through experience, as well as a space where a community in need sees fresh fruits and vegetables cultivated for their consumption. We see our garden as being a space created collaboratively by students, parents, community members, and school partners, and to watch these groups make lasting connections with the school. Given this grant from Whole Kids Foundation, we plan to expand our current garden to accommodate space for our pre-kindergarten through 8th grade students. It will also provide us with an opportunity to further engage our parents and community members, and build the capacity of the Lakeland Community to sustain our garden.