April 2017 - Seed St. Louis

Mindfulness in the School Garden

Posted on April 28, 2017 by beanstalk

Students at Mallinckrodt Academy beginning a lesson with mindfulness exercises.

This spring, youth educators Meg Holmes and Lucy Herleth have been working with Brown School practicum student Eli Horowitz to develop a mindfulness program to use in conjunction with Gateway Greening’s Seed to STEM curriculum. This project was inspired by City Seeds, the therapeutic horticulture job training program that has been offered to St. Patrick center clients on the Gateway Greening Urban Farm in various forms over the last 10 years. We know from both health studies and our own personal experiences with City Seeds that being outside and in green spaces has a positive impact on well-being. That is improved by being intentional about how one is working in that green space, coupling it with reflection, meditation, and journaling. As St. Louis Public Schools placed a ban on out of school suspensions for children 2nd grade and under, it seemed like an opportune time to add an additional component to our school garden arsenal.

What is Mindfulness?

A Mallinckrodt Academy student participating in mindfulness exercises in the school garden.

Mindfulness is the practice focusing one’s attention but in a relaxed and nonjudgmental way. Often it starts with focusing on physical sensations like the feeling of breathing.

In the near term, this practice helps students to slow down and calm down, which can help students with transitions between classes and activities. In the long term, it can help students to develop a better awareness of their body, thoughts, and emotions, which, in turn, helps students deal with stress and improve impulse control.

In addition to this, it is a transferrable skill. Focusing attention is an essential skill for our little scientists, whether it is observing pollinators to designing experiments. Being able to slow down and really pay attention is what science is all about.

Instigating the Mindfulness Program

Meg, Lucy, and Eli started the mindfulness program by working with 1st-5th graders at Mallinckrodt Academy and Clay Elementary. For the past month, they have been starting their Seed to STEM classes with 5 minute focused breathing exercises in which students are guided to focus on how their breathing feels. As the exercises finish, Eli asks each student and teacher to share feedback on how they feel with a quick questionnaire. This has allowed Eli to track the impact of regularly including mindfulness in class time. Students and teachers alike have indicated that they like to do the mindfulness exercises and feel more calm and focused when they’ve finished.

Written by Kathleen Carson, Gateway Greening Education Manager.

Looking for more ways to incorporate the school garden into your lesson plan? Stop by:

Gateway Greening’s Workshops for Educators page to explore monthly workshops that address the challenges and opportunities represented by teaching in school gardens
The Gateway Greening Educators Facebook group to connect with other teachers throughout St. Louis with similar interests in school gardens
Check out our In the School Garden Youtube playlist for short, actionable how-to videos that are seasonally relevant.

Seed to STEM

Posted on April 28, 2017 by beanstalk

Students volunteering at Gateway Elementary’s school garden in spring of 2017.

Creating Curriculum for St. Louis Educators

Gateway Greening youth educators have been working in local schools for the last five years, coordinating with teachers to get children outside and working in the garden. Through their work with local teachers, the Gateway Greening education team quickly realized that a curriculum that paired current education standards and outdoor lessons was needed.

Building on the five years of working with K-5 teachers and strengthening the life science focus of the program, the Gateway Greening education team launched its revamped curriculum program, Seed to STEM, in the Summer of 2016.

What is Seed to STEM?

Gateway Greening youth educators are working with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and Saint Louis Public Schools science curriculum to ensure that lessons developed in the garden are not merely “extra activities.” Instead, the Seed to STEM curriculum provides classroom teachers an opportunity to meet their curricular goals while also taking their students outside and engaging in hands-on learning activities.

Students at Gateway Elementary discover earth worms in the school garden.

School gardens are valuable outdoor classrooms and living laboratories. Children do not yet have the life experiences that allow them to incorporate new information that they hear or read into their understanding of the world the way that adults do. This is why it is critically important that students get their hands dirty. As educators, we want students to touch, feel, manipulate, and observe their surroundings with their own senses so that when the students encounter more abstract information, they have experience to “hang” it on. School gardens are cost-effective spaces in which to offer that experience.

What does that experience look like for St. Louis students? When lessons are taken outside to the garden, students are asked to talk about habitats, hypothesize what part of the soil they would most likely find worms in based on what they know about habitats, and test their hypothesis by finding the worms. Another lesson may find students tipping over the logs in their garden’s stump circle to find what is living underneath.

Teachers often ask their students to measure the growth of the crops, comparing the growth of plants in the sun to plants growing in the shade, and connecting those measurements back to a photosynthesis lesson in the classroom. There’s a lot to be said for learning about food webs and, if we are really lucky, watching a hawk nab a squirrel in the middle of a garden lesson. Or, somewhat less dramatically, watch the parasitoid wap larva kill a caterpillar.

An “All-Inclusive” Curriculum

Students at Mallinckrodt Academy move class time into the school garden.

In addition to the rich environment that a school garden can offer for the life sciences, it is also a place to draw in any of the other subjects or skills taught in St. Louis schools. Math and language arts are a particular favorite with teachers and are regularly incorporated into outdoor lessons in the school garden.

One of the most important lessons explored in the school garden is social-emotional skills; using the school garden as a space to practice the skill of “[p]aying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally: (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p.4). This spring Gateway Greening youth educators have been working with Eli Horowitz, a Washington University Brown School student, to work on mindfulness in the garden.

During a mindfulness lesson, students may be asked to focus on the feeling of their breath entering and leaving their body, or the feeling of the breeze on their skin. This practice helps children (and adults) develop better self-regulation, relieve anxiety, and improve concentration. These mindfulness practices are also a transferable skill that can be useful in making scientific observations.

Gateway Greening youth educators are currently working with classroom teachers at four Saint Louis Public Schools to align lessons with both the growing season calendar and the academic calendar, building a Seed to STEM curriculum that any teacher in the St. Louis region will be able to access and adapt to their school garden.

Written by Kathleen Carson, Gateway Greening Education Manager.

Reference: Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever you go, there you are: mindfulness
meditation in everyday life. New York: Hyperion.

Looking for more ways to incorporate the school garden into your lesson plan? Stop by:

Gateway Greening’s Workshops for Educators page to explore monthly workshops that address the challenges and opportunities represented by teaching in school gardens
The Gateway Greening Educators Facebook group to connect with other teachers throughout St. Louis with similar interests in school gardens
Check out our In the School Garden Youtube playlist for short, actionable how-to videos that are seasonally relevant.

GATEWAY GREENING AWARDED $205,000 GRANT BY MONSANTO FUND

Posted on April 19, 2017 by beanstalk

Grant will be used to educate and empower the youth of St. Louis through exposure to gardening and healthy eating.

St. Louis (April 20th, 2017) – Gateway Greening has been educating and empowering individuals to strengthen their communities through gardening and urban agriculture in the St. Louis community for more than 30 years. As part of its 2017 initiative, the Monsanto Fund has granted $205,000 to Gateway Greening for its Youth and School Garden Program. Monsanto Fund has partnered with Gateway Greening since 2004, contributing more than $1.5 million to various programs over the last 12 years.

Through the Monsanto Fund, Gateway Greening’s youth and school gardens are able to inspire and educate children across St. Louis through hands-on outdoor lessons and activities in the garden. Gateway Greening works with parents, teachers and other community leaders to teach kids about gardening, agriculture and healthy eating. Matt Schindler, Gateway Greening’s Executive Director, explains the importance of this grant. “With the Monsanto Fund, Gateway Greening is educating and inspriring St. Louis’ future agricultural professionals. Our youth and school garden program is impacting 10,151 students in 51 neighborhoods,” said Schindler.

Michelle Insco, Monsanto Fund program officer, highlights the wide scope of benefits provided by the program. “Gateway Greening’s Youth Garden Program beautifies our community, teaches young people about food and nutrition, and pulls science education out of the classroom and into an engaging, outdoor environment,” said Insco. “Many of these students grew up in the city, so they also learn how agriculture is an integral part in our daily lives, even if they’ve never been to a farm. Monsanto Fund is proud to support this program.”

When building youth gardens, projects are selected based on a number of factors including: need, the quality of the garden space, the level of community and staff support and the thoroughness of the plan for using the garden space. Awarded sites are typically supported with seeds/plants, garden tools, materials (hardscape and landscape), curricular resources and training. We strive to establish sustainable garden projects that can continue teaching our youth for years to come.

About Gateway Greening

Gateway Greening is a nonprofit organization that educates and empowers people to strengthen their communities through gardening and urban agriculture. Gateway Greening has been working to provide creative, grassroots solutions to urban problems since 1984. Programs include supporting more than 220 community and school gardens across the St. Louis area through educational opportunities, garden supplies and technical assistance; and Gateway Greening’s Urban Farm, a 2.5-acre farm in downtown St. Louis that provides therapeutic horticulture and a jobs training program. Visit Gateway Greening at www.gatewaygreening.org. @gatewaygreening.

About Monsanto Fund

The Monsanto Fund, the philanthropic arm of the Monsanto Company, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening the communities where farm families and Monsanto Company employees live and work. Visit the Monsanto Fund at www.monsantofund.org.

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Teacher Spotlight: Shannon Flanders of Mallinckrodt Academy

Posted on April 18, 2017 by beanstalk

Mallinckrodt Academy’s school garden in late spring of 2016.

Interview with Shannon Flanders, kindergarten teacher at Mallinckrodt Academy in St. Louis, MO, about how she personally became involved with the school’s garden.

How did you get started with gardening at school?

I started as a parent when garden beds were installed at Mallinckrodt. When I became a teacher, I started working with Miss Meg, the Gateway Greening Youth Educator immediately.

What is most worthwhile part of school gardening?

The most worthwhile part is being outside. We use the garden as an outdoor classroom where we get hands-on experiences, watch cycles of nature and the kids are able to get dirty.

What is your favorite thing to plant with your students?

We made greenhouses for lima beans in plastic bags in the classroom. The students observed and recorded the growth of the plants. It wasn’t something mysterious, happening underground. Being able to observe the process of growth made the topic more concrete for them and tied together a lot of experiences they will have out in the garden.

What do teachers need the most in order use a school garden successfully?

Time in the day, the desire to get outside and get their hands dirty, and the willingness to learn.

I am not a great gardener. I actually have a giant brown thumb. So the garden is an opportunity to model not being good at something but not being intimidated and still getting out there and trying, having a good time.

What is your best garden story?

We were preparing the beds for winter, everyone had their hands in the soil and each child ended up with a worm in their hands. The students were so dirty; they had dirty hands, dirty faces, and dirty clothes. But they were laughing and working together and having a great time.

What are you excited to try/do this coming growing season?

We are watching the fruit trees that are in the orchard. They’re blooming now and when school starts back in the fall, there will be fruit for the students to harvest. I love teaching about cycles and patterns in nature, and the garden and trees at school are perfect for observation.

What are your favorite garden-themed books?

Jack’s Garden by Henry Cole

Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens

A Place to Grow by Soyung Pak

Interview with Shannon Flanders conducted by Kathleen Carson, Gateway Greening Education Manager, in April 2017.

Mallinckrodt Academy School Garden, Summer of 2016.

Looking for more ways to incorporate the school garden into your lesson plan? Stop by:

Gateway Greening’s Workshops for Educators page to explore monthly workshops that address the challenges and opportunities represented by teaching in school gardens
The Gateway Greening Educators Facebook group to connect with other teachers throughout St. Louis with similar interests in school gardens
Check out our In the School Garden Youtube playlist for short, actionable how-to videos that are seasonally relevant.

April on the Urban Farm with Dig It STL

Posted on April 18, 2017 by beanstalk

Interns from Soldan International High School painting row signs for the Gateway Greening Urban Farm.

The appearance of April on the farm coincides with the mysterious disappearance of sufficient hours in the day.

Dig It kicked it into high gear last week, cutting, assembling, and painting 96 wooden signs to mark the beds on the Gateway Greening Urban Farm. What we thought might take two days turned into four days of feverish cutting, drilling, and painting.

Dig IT STL intern Adam and AmeriCorps VISTA Genesis planting on the Gateway Greening Urban Farm.

A quick side trip with a few interns to plant half a bed of greens became several hours of aphid-squishing after we discovered the pesky pests had already invaded the seedlings. While we were there, we thought we’d check on the no-till bed whose cover crop surely would be nice and dead by now. Can you tell what part of the bed the holey tarp was on? Hint: it’s the part that still looks very much alive.

Cover crops that survived due to hole-filled tarps.

We re-crimped the cover crop, and found a long roll of black landscape fabric to replace the offending tarp. By then everyone was late, breaking into a slow jog to get the Gateway Greening Urban Farm cleaned and locked up.

Despite the frenetic pace of the final weeks of spring internship, the world right now is certainly mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful, as e.e. cumming wrote. Our interns are already asking about volunteering on the Gateway Greening Urban Farm after graduation, a suggestion that they too have caught the farming bug. I hear it’s pretty contagious.

Written by Carolyn Cosgrove-Payne, Teen Programs Coordinator

Discover more about the Dig It STL Program:

A Semester in the Dig It STL Internship Program

No-Till Proposal by Dig It STL

April Showers in School Gardens

Posted on April 11, 2017 by beanstalk

Second graders of Clay Elementary learning about Ecosystem Connections in the School Garden with Gateway Greening Youth Educator Lucy Herleth on a rainy April morning.

It has been a rainy April, but the Clay Elementary second graders are still out in the school garden. Rain often keeps students inside, just as the seeds need to be planted. Instead of stressing about a ruined planting plan, we’ll throw on an extra layer and head outside!

Ecosystem Connections

Second graders discover wiggling worms in the school garden, learning ecosystem connections on a rainy April day.

The second graders are currently learning about ecosystems and a rainy day is the perfect chance to see ecosystem connections. Luckily, Gateway Greening’s Clay Elementary program recently received a donation of rain coats from Frogg Toggs. After quickly dressing in the new rain gear and grabbing science notebooks, the second graders were able to visit the garden on a recent rainy afternoon. First, the second graders met in the gazebo to discuss how springtime is such a special season for the garden. Gardeners may not like all the rainy days, but it keeps the plants very happy.

Now comfortable getting a little wet in their raincoats, the second graders grabbed trowels and created a trench to plant seed potatoes. It took everyone working together to create a trench the entire length of the garden bed. While digging in the wet soil, students observed the soil and the worms wiggling throughout – another ecosystem connection. As they finished creating the trench, the second graders brought out rulers to practice their measuring skills. They double checked that the holes were deep enough and that the seed potato pieces were far enough apart. Tools and hands were a little muddy but potatoes were planted!

The Clay Elementary second graders were excellent gardeners, even in less than ideal conditions. They helped to plant seed potatoes that had to get in the ground and learned that rain does not have to stop the outdoor fun. They got a little damp post Seed-to-STEM lesson but were more energized than ever to get out in the garden.

The Takeaway

Don’t let a little rain stop you from getting out in the school garden. Encourage students (and teachers) to wear clothes that can get muddy and get outside, even if it is just for a little bit.

Written by Gateway Greening Youth Educator Lucy Herleth. For questions about this article or the Seed to STEM program, please contact Lucy at 314-588-9600 ext 106, or send her an email at [email protected].

Discover more about what is happening in St. Louis school gardens this spring:

Weather won’t stop us! (Autistic Classroom at Clay Elementary)

VermiComposting at Gateway Elementary

Students Planning School Garden Crops

Compost Challenge at Mallinckrodt Academy

Second Graders at Clay Elementary heading back inside after a lesson in ecosystem connections in the school garden – despite April showers!

Looking for more ways to incorporate the school garden into your lesson plan? Stop by:

Gateway Greening’s Workshops for Educators page to explore monthly workshops that address the challenges and opportunities represented by teaching in school gardens
The Gateway Greening Educators Facebook group to connect with other teachers throughout St. Louis with similar interests in school gardens
Check out our In the School Garden Youtube playlist for short, actionable how-to videos that are seasonally relevant.

A Semester in Dig It STL Internship Program

Posted on April 6, 2017 by beanstalk

This is the first year that Gateway Greening has offered a high school internship program, in addition to our summer teen employment program. Through the internship, local high school students explore environmental issues, the St. Louis food system, and local urban agriculture projects, all while earning school credit.

Here at Gateway Greening, we’ve been talking about the Dig It STL internship program and sharing pictures for months. Yet many people still find themselves wondering – what do the teens that participate in Dig It STL do exactly? For those who are curious to see what a semester in the Dig It STL internship program looks like, here are the highlights of what these youth have been doing, from October 2016 to April 2017.

Dig It Interns from Soldan International High School spent a sunny day mulching fruit trees on the Gateway Greening Urban Farm.

October 6th: Plant Identification & Plant Families Workshop on the Gateway Greening Urban Farm.

October 18th: Healthy Soils 101 Workshop: We built a compost pile and tested our soil’s water-holding abilities and aggregation.

November 1st: Interviewed for TV by KMOX on the farm! We aren’t sure if the segment has aired yet, but it was pretty fun.

November 10th: Helping Forest Park Forever’s Nature Reserve Steward plant spring ephemerals in the forest.

November 22nd: Helping Farm Manager Jackson draft the crop rotation plan for the Gateway Greening Urban Farm’s next growing season.

December 8th: Mixing up a batch of Fire Cider to ward off the common cold, and learning about the healing properties of plants from Dani Gallagher of Roaming Soul Apothecary.

January 5th: Watching and discussing ‘The Garden’, the story of the South Central Farm, the largest community garden in the US (note: this is a great and educational film, but not a happy one! Tears were shed!)

January 12th: St. Louis Food Policy Council’s Melissa Vatterott introduced teens to the process of making policy in the City of St. Louis, and how policy affects food access.

January 17th: Dr. Ellen Barnidge and Dr. Stephanie McClure from St. Louis University gave our interns a crash course in hunger and food insecurity in our region.

January 31st: Our first planting- green onions!

Interns Anna and Adam taking soil samples on the Gateway Greening Urban Farm, as part of their no-till capstone project.

February 3rd: The no-till culminating project begins to take shape.

February 9th: One of the many days that Dig It helped Community Garden Manager Dean build beds, sheds, benches, and more for community gardens. Power tools are awesome.

March 1st: 12 interns from Soldan International Studies High School begin their 8-week internship.

March 9th: Dig It led a phenomenal tour of the farm for a funder.

March 16th: Helping out at Global Farms, a farm project for resettled refugees through the International Institute (we worked with them once a month all year).

April 4th: All no-till beds have had their cover crops killed and are tarped off- now we are just waiting for the frost date to pass so we can plant in them!

Thanks to our many awesome partners in food, farming, and ecology who have been guest speakers or led working field trips for our teens! It has been a fantastic experience.

Written by Carolyn Cosgrove-Payne, Teen Programs Coordinator

USDA Awards Grant to Support Green Jobs for St. Louis Teens

Posted on April 5, 2017 by beanstalk

USDA Awards Grant to Support Green Jobs for St. Louis Teens

Gateway Greening, Missouri Botanical Garden, Saint Louis Public Schools among organizations working together to support teens pursuing degrees and careers in food, agriculture, and natural resources

ST LOUIS, Missouri, April 4, 2017 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded a $135,000 two-year grant to local organizations that employ teens in urban farms, parks, trails, gardens, and other green space. As part of its SPECA program (Secondary Education, Two-Year Postsecondary Education, and Agriculture) in the K-12 Classroom, the agency is supporting a collaborative project of Gateway Greening, Missouri Botanical Garden, Saint Louis Public Schools, and other community organizations, aimed at connecting urban teens with outdoor summer jobs and school-year internships that also provide opportunities for academic enrichment, career development, and civic leadership.

Specifically, funding will support youth workforce development through the efforts of the St. Louis Green Teen Alliance, a collaborative of 8 organizations who collectively recruit, employ, train, and support teens via summer jobs and school-year internships focused on productive, healthy lands and waters, ranging from community gardens in food desert neighborhoods to city parks, trails, and reserves. In addition to building critical skills like critical thinking, communication and collaboration, the effort is designed to cultivate a sense of civic pride and ownership among participants, building a future workforce with training in urban issues and solutions.

“This is far more than a summer jobs program,” says Dawna Wharton, Career and Technical Education Specialist for Saint Louis Public Schools. “Our students will learn first-hand about urban agriculture, ecology, and environmental stewardship. They’ll interact with career professionals in fields like urban planning, natural resource management, environmental engineering, education, research, and public policy. And they’ll do all of this alongside peers, working in their own neighborhoods and communities.”

The two-year grant will also fund the University of Missouri – St. Louis to lead an evaluation and assessment effort aimed at improving program impacts in the areas of knowledge and attitudinal shifts and broadening of academic and career interests among participants. Indicators of success will also include direct improvements to green space, such as local food production, ecological restoration, storm water management, and wildlife habitat.

Information on the St. Louis Green Teen Alliance, its programs, and partner organizations can be found at http://www.stlycc.org/.

This project was supported by the SPECA Program of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, USDA, Grant#12122428

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About Gateway Greening

Gateway Greening is a nonprofit organization that educates and empowers people to strengthen their communities through gardening and urban agriculture. Gateway Greening has been working to provide creative, grassroots solutions to urban problems since 1984. Programs include supporting more than 220 community and youth-focused gardens across the St. Louis area through educational opportunities, garden supplies and technical assistance, and the Gateway Greening Urban Farm, a 2.5-acre farm in downtown St. Louis that provides therapeutic horticulture and jobs training.

About Missouri Botanical Garden

The Missouri Botanical Garden’s mission is “to discover and share knowledge about plants and their environment in order to preserve and enrich life.” Today, 158 years after opening, the Missouri Botanical Garden is a National Historic Landmark and a center for science, conservation, education and horticultural display.

About Saint Louis Public Schools

Saint Louis Public Schools is the district of choice for families in the St. Louis region that provides a worldclass education and is nationally recognized as a leader in student achievement and teacher quality. The SLPS mission is to provide a quality education for all students and enable them to realize their full intellectual potential. SLPS also believes that competent, caring, properly supported teachers are essential to student learning.

Contacts:

Kathleen Carson, Gateway Greening Education Manager. [email protected]

Sheila S. Voss, Missouri Botanical Garden Vice President of Education. [email protected]