School gardens are a wonderful way to use the schoolyard as a classroom, reconnect students with the natural world and the true source of their food, and teach them valuable gardening and agriculture concepts and skills that integrate with several subjects, such as math, science, art, health and physical education, and social studies, as well as several educational goals, including personal and social responsibility.
Learning Gardens produce fresh vegetables, serve as outdoor classrooms and brings everyone together—but that’s not all! We celebrate unique learning and growing experiences that happen in gardens as we journey across the country to schools to introduce school and home gardening, Nutritional education and food safety. Take a look at some of the special moments that happen in Let’s Go Farming each day—or share your story with us!
Kids and gardens go together like peas and carrots – or in this case, cucumber and trellises.
On a sunny morning in the garden, curious eighth graders were tasked with working together to measure and place cucumber trellises using only a ruler and string.
Each time an experiment failed, they came back with an even stronger strategy. With a little trial and error, they discovered they could wrap the string around the trellis, marking where it began and ended. They could then measure the distance between those two points.
“You can accomplish a lot with just a few people when you all work as a team,” said one budding scientist.
The best part is that these determined students accomplished all this without the help of their teacher. They relied instead on lessons they had learned in class and cooperation they practiced in the garden!
Hands-On Learning
“You have to be very gentle when you hold the plants, so you don’t hurt them!”
Dirty, smelly, rotten food. Sounds repellent, right?
Not to these students. It might be hard to believe that kids love to compost. 7th Grade students have learned that if they have a leftover snack, it can go right in the compost bin!
In fact, many of them have even been inspired to start composting at their own homes.
No word yet on how their parents feel about having rotting organic matter around the property, but we’re certain our students will convince them that composting has some great benefits!
Blossoming Friendships
A few of our younger gardeners get a bit nervous around some of the insects in the garden, even the more helpful ones.
This week one boy said he was going to smack a particularly persistent wasp with his clipboard.
One of our staff made a last-ditch attempt to come to the rescue of the insect. “No, that’s Samuel, he’s my friend!”
The boy hesitated and replied, “How do you know him?”
After that, it was an all-out competition to name every single wasp in the garden–they also found Samuel Jr. and Marie. Looks like they’re slowly warming up to the garden insects!
