Gateway Greening Youth Programs Archives - Page 4 of 8

Communities Make the Difference!

Posted on August 15, 2016 by sara

Summer crops at the Shaw VPA School Garden – Sweet potatoes, Okra, Squash, and a few stray Tomatoes!

I recently stopped by Shaw VPA to take photos of their awesome stump circle – but wound up taking photos of the garden instead! It may be summer break, but this is one school garden that’s still receiving regular TLC.

It’s a tough reality that the most active growing period in the garden coincides with summer break – when teachers and students are gone. It can be challenging to keep crops thriving without a dedicated caretaker to weed and water through the hottest days of summer. So what did Shaw VPA do keep their space beautiful and thriving?

Community Makes the Difference

How did Shaw VPA keep their garden looking so loved? Simple: They got the community involved.

Second grade teacher Angela Vaughn knows that no school garden is maintenance free during the summer months, so she approached this summer with a plan. Before Shaw VPA let out for the long break, she asked students and their families to sign up to take turns weeding, watering, and harvesting in the garden throughout the summer. It’s a great system that allows students to see how ‘their’ plants are doing while sharing their enthusiasm and new-found knowledge with their families.

The garden also draws in volunteers from the local community who stop in to weed, water, and even to visit with their neighbors. Since every summer helper is encouraged to take home any of the produce they harvest, very little goes to waste – even when school’s out for summer!

Sweet Potato Challenge

Shaw VPA also makes the most of the summer growing season by participating in the Sweet Potato Challenge. This yearly competition starts in May, when teachers take their students outside to plant their slips (sweet potato starts) in the garden. Over the summer the sweet potato plants grow quickly, sprouting attractive green vines that shade the soil, reducing evaporation and keeping the soil moist longer. At the same time, the vines help to suppress weeds, helping to keep summer garden maintenance low.

One of the great things about this challenge is that the sweet potatoes are ready to harvest in October, meaning the kids get to watch the last few months of their growth and to see, touch and taste the results of their work from the previous spring. The competition ends as students harvest and weigh their crops, competing against other schools to win the coveted first place in one of three categories: Largest Harvest (lbs), Weirdest Potato Shape, and Largest Potato!

Want to learn more about the Sweet Potato Challenge? Check out Shaw VPA teacher Angela Vaughn’s story of her students participating in the Sweet Potato Challenge last year here.

Summer crops at the Shaw VPA School Garden – Sweet potatoes, Okra, Squash, and a few stray Tomatoes!

Thank you Shaw VPA!

As much as I loved spending time exploring the school garden, it wasn’t my goal in visiting Shaw VPA this week. So I wandered over to the nearby stump circle, and immediately had to smile.

Many of the school gardens Gateway Greening supports include a circle of old tree stumps – the perfect place for students to sit for an outdoor class, a reading period, or just to rest for a moment during particularly hot lessons. At Shaw VPA, art teacher Katie Warnick has transformed their circle into a fun place by having the students paint the stumps. It’s hard not to grin over all the different colors and designs the students brought into the garden!

Today I’m lucky, because a few of these stumps will be coming back to the office with me. Thanks to the generosity of Ms. Warnick and her students, 5 stumps will be included in the silent auction at our upcoming fundraiser, Chefs in a Garden. This event is one of the biggest sources of funding for many of our programs here at Gateway Greening, including the support we provide for school gardens throughout St. Louis. We’re thrilled to be able to share a little bit of the Shaw VPA school garden and its story with our supporters, and hopefully to start a stump circle somewhere new!

The best part? I get to spend the next few days smiling over the colorful stumps that surround my desk.

-Erin Wood, Communications and Fundraising AmeriCorps VISTA

Reflecting on Rigor – Dig It STL

Posted on August 2, 2016 by sara

Dig It teens are on the home stretch, with only 1 week to go before their summer jobs are over. They have done some HARD physical work, jobs that would make adults cringe and retreat into air conditioning. Last week, we harvested 6 rows of potatoes at La Vista Farm in Godfrey (in addition to rows and rows of tomatoes and carrots). It was 95 degrees, and crew members were crawling through the soil filling up buckets behind the potato digger. Some potatoes were rotten, and when crew members grabbed them, the liquefied potatoes exploded onto their hands. We were sweaty, stinky, and coated in potato goo and a thick layer of dirt. Naturally, crew were complaining and moving pretty slowly by the end of that job, and the crew leaders had their work cut out for them to keep the group motivated and working.

We stopped to eat lunch, and after lunch we had about 20 minutes before we needed to leave. The farmer gave us some options: either we could leave then, or we could speed pick green beans for a few minutes. Without hesitation (okay, maybe with a little hesitation), our crew went out into the beans.

I was incredibly proud of them. This is what it’s all about- being willing to help somebody, to do it well, and to finish the job with a positive attitude, even if it makes you sore and hot and uncomfortable.

However, this is not the hardest work we’ve done this summer. The most challenging task Dig It takes on, from the day they start until long after they finish, is the task of building a loving and supportive community from a group of strangers. Many adults comment to me that Dig It reminds them of day camp, and that it doesn’t seem like a real job. They don’t usually mean this in a negative way– they just notice all the games we play every morning, or the time we spend talking and reflecting, and understandably make an assumption that those things don’t count as work.

True, building community is not usually a central task in our day jobs, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t work. From the first day of Dig It, we push our youth to open up and share things about themselves with the group. We push them to treat each other with respect and dignity. We help them find strategies to resolve conflicts with other crew members. We play games every day to practice our group problem-solving skills and to build trust with each other. We train them to ask each other if they need help. If someone is working alone, ask if they want some company. Hold each other accountable– if a friend is slacking off, remind them that we’re here to work. We learn about how social structures like racism and sexism affect our individual group, and we take steps to hold ourselves to a higher standard. Given the choice between picking slimy potatoes in the heat or doing this community-building work, I think many adults would choose the potatoes. But out of all that community building, we get a group of young people who take care of each other, and can accomplish any task while honoring the opinions and ideas of each individual.

There is no shortcut to this outcome. No amount of money can buy a loving and supportive community. You’ve got to do the work, every day, even on bad days. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it. Our crew has truly shown up for each other and done that work, and it’s not the kind of thing you can un-learn.

-Carolyn Cosgrove Payne, Youth Educator

Nahed Chapman New American Academy International Garden

Posted on July 18, 2016 by sara

The Journey Begins with Us

My original questions was…Can we provide refugee students with information that can assist them in overcoming the unique challenges that exist in their classrooms? As the nation’s demographics change, so does our responsibility to meet the needs of this diverse student body. These students have significant implications for educational and social policy. One component of the Nahed Chapman New American Academy ecological milieu was to provide avenues for in-depth discussions of practices that can help all students make informed choices when it comes to our environment. As a result of those discussions, surveys were taken and students decided to plan and grow an International Garden.

We began our quest to become a “greener school” with conducting student-led school-wide needs assessments, conducting research, advocating for change with key stakeholders and coordinating a symposia that highlighted successes via our school newsletter. There is always a lot to learn about the lives of people that we interact with each day that will establish a better rapport. Without some connections, people often unintentionally make gross generalizations about others. The end result of this activity—students who come from diverse backgrounds became teachers, too.

Most supermarkets are stocked with foods that could easily be grown locally. Yet food is often transported from countries thousands of miles away to local supermarkets. If home grown food was grown and/or purchased more often, this would dramatically reduce the amount of fuel used and consequently the amount of pollution created. Likewise, if our community partners consumed locally produced seasonal foods instead of out of season foods, this too would decrease our carbon footprint. Composting is good for the environment and for gardens. We have designated an area in our court yard to put fruit peels, and uneaten food. After a while, we’ll be able to use the compost to fertilize our International Garden.

Education still remains the pathway that leads people out of despair and hopelessness. My intent was to provide information concerning culturally relevant strategies, school-wide initiatives, and individual classroom practices that help to close the vocabulary, reading, writing, and content area literacy gaps that exist for many students. In this Science Unit, I included adaptations and accommodations to help a range of learners gain access to the curriculum. Schools reflect the attitudes and commitment of the entire community. Indeed what seems to have occurred is the first endorsement of a school-wide “Go Greener” initiative. I am cheered by the possibility of making a difference.

Together we can make a difference that will last for millions of lifetimes—the journey begins with us.

By Nelver Brooks, Middle School Science Teacher at Nahed Chapman New American Academy and Garden Leader with the International Garden.

Building Our Community | Mallinckrodt School Garden

Posted on June 7, 2016 by sara

Gateway Greening’s primary goal is to promote community development through its various programs and, in my role as a Youth Educator, I get to witness our organization’s mission come to life.

As a youth educator, I work with schools and teachers. Instead of handing them lessons and lesson plans, I work with them and their students and we learn together how to use the school garden as a tool for education. In this process of learning outdoors, we grow a garden and we use this as a tool to grow our community.

Mrs. Dixon showing her students how to plant peppers. She is a master of using the garden as an educational tool.

Yesterday, I was at Mallinckrodt School Garden dropping off the plants that Bill Ruppert, of National Nursery Products, had donated to Mallinckrodt Academy. During his visit to this school garden in April, Bill received a tour from a bunch of excited students. These students were so proud of their pollinator garden bed and thoroughly highlighted the purpose of these plants in their garden.

Students giving a tour to their visitors and showing them their bug hotel. Bill Ruppert is at the back of the group making careful observations and then finding a way to support their project.

Bill noticed that they were in need of more pollinator plants and happily donated hundreds of dollars worth of plant material to fill in their sparse pollinator beds.

In the foreground are the native pollinator plants donated by Bill Ruppert. Thank you Bill Ruppert! In the background, you are seeing Silvio turning over a bed to plant the tomatoes he grew in the Mallinckrodt School Garden.

As I was unloading these plants at Mallinckrodt School Garden, a neighbor named Silvio Angeli stopped by. He wanted to see if we needed any tomato plants. He is an avid home gardener and lives a couple of houses down from the school garden and had some extra that he wanted to share with us. I was thrilled not at the prospect of acquiring the tomato plants but for the hope of gaining one more stakeholder. I told Silvio we would love to have the tomato plants. He not only gave us those plants but also turned over the bed and got them in the ground.

Silvio Angeli, thank you for being a superstar, neighbor extraordinary to the Mallinckrodt School Garden!

Gateway Greening’s community gardens not only grow food but also helps people build relationships. It is these relationships that slowly strengthen our community. There are many ways to support community gardening in St. Louis. Be sure to reach out to a Gateway Greening community garden next to where you live (map) and offer your talent or volunteer with us.

St. Louis will look very different if we all find a small way to invest back in our community and build meaningful ties and relationships with our neighbors.

Susan, a community gardener, involving students from Cote Brilliant into her gardening routine. These students helped her get the sweet potatoes planted. Community building at its best!

Thank you Bill Ruppert and Silvio Angeli for your contribution to Mallinckrodt School Garden, a Gateway Greening project. We look forward to seeing you soon.

-Punita Patel, Gateway Greening Youth Educator

Abundance

Posted on May 31, 2016 by sara

At Clay Elementary, the mulberries are falling from the trees like a black and blue rain and the elderflowers are blooming. We harvested cabbage and lettuce on the last day of school, and the very first raspberry was bright red against the leaves. Somehow we ended up with a whole bed of rutabagas, all the size of baseballs and only getting bigger. The preschool class made a big batch of strawberry rhubarb jam from the garden. 5 perfect strawberries lingered under the leaves after all the classes had gone inside. And there was still more to be picked, everywhere we looked– mountains of sage, mint, and kale, gobbling up sunlight and reaching out for more.

So often we feel that resources- money, time, patience- are scarce, and that feeling of scarcity can take a heavy emotional toll. Growing food can replenish our feelings of abundance. Plant one tomato seed, and at the end of the year, you’ll end up with not only tomatoes, but thousands more tomato seeds. Plant asparagus or apple trees one time, and for the next 50 years, it will feed you like clockwork. Chickens lay eggs almost every day. Everything in the garden grows, from a child’s perspective, as if by magic. Suddenly one day, from a seed and then a stem and then a leafy mass, there are peas. As they begin to understand some of the natural systems behind the magic– photosynthesis, the water cycle, the soil food web– kids realize that the earth has given us the tools we need to take care of ourselves, if we are willing.

School gardens are surging in popularity, and many researchers are trying to pinpoint what exactly it is about growing food that seems to benefit children so much. I think we know the answer. A full bed of ripe strawberries challenges the narrative of scarcity, anxiety, and helplessness, and replaces it with other things- joy, gratitude, and hope.

-Youth Educator Carolyn Cosgrove Payne

Field Trip Season is in Full Swing!

Posted on May 26, 2016 by sara

Did you know that Gateway Greening offers field trips to the Demonstration Garden and Gateway Greening Urban Farm?

Clay Elementary’s second-grade class did! They recently spent a morning at the Bell Demonstration & Community Garden with Gateway Greening educators Carolyn and Kathleen, exploring the colors, sounds, textures, and even tastes of the plants growing there. The field trip began with a scavenger hunt, with kids and chaperones scattering to the far corners of the extensive garden space to hunt for colors, shapes, and organisms. Without realizing it, the students were practicing simple math and descriptive language as part of the fun!

Once the kids had burned off a bit of energy (and explored every inch of the garden thoroughly) they were invited to meet the long-time residents of the PURINA community coop – Fat George and the rest of her flock! These chickens are always a favorite with the kids, coming close to the coop’s screens to be fed and admired by all while the educators spoke a bit about how to care for and raise chickens. Biology is always more interesting when the subject of the lesson squawks back!

One of the best things about taking kids outside and into the garden for lessons is how eager they are to try and do absolutely everything – even spread mulch. Students learned all about working together to accomplish tasks as they shoveled, carted, and spread mulch in one of Bell Garden’s many native plant beds. (It also proved to be a handy way to start a conversation about building healthy soil!)

But without a doubt, the best part of the field trip was making ‘herbal’ lemonade from scratch, using fresh lemons, sugar, water, and fresh-picked herbs straight from the surrounding garden. Not only was it tasty to drink, but the kids had a blast asking questions and picking herbs to flavor their lemonade!

Does anyone else find themselves wishing they could go back to being a kid for a day? I know I sure did – it all looked like fun!

-Gateway Greening AmeriCorps VISTA Erin Wood

Place to Sit

Posted on May 24, 2016 by sara

Often we recieve donations for such benches that are odd and we find ways to make them work.

What are school gardens without a place to sit? As a school garden educator, seating is the first thing I tackle when I go into a new school garden setting. I have quickly learned that gardens that do not accommodate seating for the whole class run poorly. When classes come out to the garden they need the same kind of structure and routine as they do when they are indoors. Having a place to sit and center before starting garden related activities is an essential step to having a successful outdoor experience.

Here one school parent is helping with this seemingly complicated installation process.

Yup, it works.

Seat is good to go.

There are many options when it comes to outdoors seating as you see below. My favorite type by far is the one we make ourselves using stumps from forestry department. I like that it is easy and free to create but I mostly love it because it allows each student to have his or her stump. Crowding on a limited seating outdoors is often a problem and inadvertently leads students squabbling over something.

Our outdoor classroom at Shaw VPA from earlier this spring.

We do not have a hammock at any of the school gardens that I work at but I have always contemplated it. Why stop at seating when you can be swinging?

Picture from earlier this spring when we didn’t have much to garden we did lot of garden art. I love stumps but various seating options are important for this reason.

Favorites

A very quiet classroom on a Saturday afternoon.

Even little robin likes this one.

My favorite configuration for seating as it accomodates for large and small groups.

Someone placed this bench under the oak a few years ago at Bell and it’s been there since. These kids think it’s there to help them climb their beloved tree. They mostly use it as a ladder or a stage.

This infant comes with his mom at Mallinckrodt school garden and brings his own seating. His mom weeds and plants while he sits and waves at everyone!

Shaw VPA got new picnic benches as part of their garden awards from Gateway Greening this spring. They have been well worn already for all the use they have seen already.

…and sometimes it looks like lady bugs. Art teacher at Shaw has done a fabulous job with embracing the garden and incorporating it into her art curriculum.

Art class outdoors looks like this.

This beautiful artwork lives in the garden at Shaw VPA.

Sometimes teachers just use what they have. Ms. Davie holding together her group of girls as they sat on the ground to finish their pre-test.

These tables are so cute and they work well for small group activities.

Tiny table for 4 doubles its capacity but this accommodation does not come without squabbles of who they can or can not sit next to.

Student found writing under the grape arbor.

One way to use stepping stones.

Place to sit

These students won ice-cream with the school’s principal. Having variety of seating options makes garden inviting to larger groups of users.

At Shaw VPA teachers ask cafetaria staff to brown bag students’ lunches so they can sit in the garden to eat. Did you know you can request this option for your students?

A new arrangment with some extra stumps.

Found at Cote Brilliant Community Garden and it is this seat that has inspired me to write this blog post. I love Cote and keep it close to my heart for this reason.

The view you will have when you are sitting on this garden throne.

Summer is the time when educators have time to take a deep breath and evaluate what worked and how we can do things differently next year. This summer put outdoor classroom on your radar when doing such an evaluation. Be sure to ask yourself if your outdoor space has the kind of seating that will make you successful in your endeavor.

-Punita Patel, Youth Educator

What a Couple of Weeks Looks Like at GG’s School Gardens

Posted on May 10, 2016 by sara

The last few weeks of school are always full of a flurry of activities. School gardens are not an exception; we feel the squeeze as the students start to count down the days. There are so many i’s to dot and peas to pick and so little time to get in the summer vegetables and plant the sweet potatoes slips.

Are you feeling the same squeeze? Are you scratching your head trying to figure out how to fit it all in?

The answer may be different for everyone but for us at Mallinckrodt Academy, Shaw VPA, Gateway Elementary and Clay is that we make time for outdoor education and we stick with it against all odds, sort of how you would to lunch periods.

I wanted to share our week in the nutshell using pictures to convey all the ways we have used our school garden this past week or two.

It will be all over before you know it but while you are at it don’t forget to enter the Sweet Potato Competition and pick up your sweet potato slips. It makes for a great finale.

A little note from students found on the garden’s chalkboard.

Gateway Greening Board members came and worked alongside of Mallinckrodt students and parents one fine April Saturday morning. Here they are preping student made pavers.

Pulling out raddishes to add to the salad we made for the Saturday workday with GGI board.

GGI’s executive director was at Mallinckrodt work day with his whole family. Here they are sharing with the group the highlights of their experience on this workday.

GGI staff and board members, Mallinckrodt parents, and students sitting down at the school’s outdoor classroom at the end of the work day to share a salad made using ingredients from the garden.

Fifth grader at Mallinckrodt Academy preparing salad with the help from Amanda Doyle, a parent of a 2nd grader at Mallinckrodt.

This is the aftermath of the Earth Day. Thank you Earth Day for helping Gateway Greening squirrel away all the strawbales for the season. Thank you Laura Allers-Lowry.

We now have a plenty of straw to keep those potatoes hilled and keep all those weeds at bay.

A student had made a nest during art class that she wanted to bring outside so the birds can use the yard from to create a real nest. Garden fever comes in many shapes and colors.

2nd Graders at Mallinckrodt hatched out some chickens and 3rd graders raised them. A few students created a chicken hotel out of boxes for them to live in. Here a student is creating a little library.

Chicken hotel with different rooms and doors cut out in the boxes.

Students came out to the garden to learn how to make a salad using the lettuce from their garden. Thank you Diana Finlay for the lesson on the easy dressing recipe.

Fourth graders are reading Seedfolks and creating their own seedfolk bed. So far we they have planted beans and here they were planting Goldenrod.

Giving up recess to work with Ms. Punita. I often hear students say, ”This is more fun than recess. All we ever do during recess is play four square.”

We do not have a yard waste dumpster so using all these sticks we attempted a hugelkultur bed.

More of the chicken hotel.

This by far is the coolest chicken hotel in Saint Louis, I hope these chickens know that.

Not too long ago my co-worker taught me about this beautiful native black locust. They were in bloom in our region last week. Here students at Shaw VPA are getting to know about black locust.

Learning with Mrs. Diana. Here they were tasting Kohlrabi.

Weeding and chatting at Shaw VPA.

Seeds we had collected during our seeds class in fall are being used this spring for soap making. Be sure to check out our YouTube channel to see our video on how to make soap in the garden.

Watching the soap melt.

Students at Mallinckrodt leading a tour of their garden for our Garden programs biggest supporter. Here they are showing off the bug hotel.

Shaw VPA students also got to show off all their hard work in the garden.

Routinely we uproot mint and put it outside for parents to pick up after school.

All planned activities come to an halt when this guests visit or are discovered by students. And when these guests are discovered by students in our garden they stop all planned activities and focus on them.

What a beautiful creature.

Endless joy of tumbling a composter.

Hard at work!

Mint anybody?

Serious weeding at Gateway Elementary. This all girls class just got done with MAP testing and we heard weeding is quite an antidote to test related stress.

Planting ninebark they secured from Gateway Greening’s Great Perennial Divide. Thank you Hannah for all the effort you put in to GPD to beautify our city.

Go Gateway! The all girls class and their teacher cleaned up a patch of weeds quite nicely to plant some plants they got from Gateway Greening’s Great Perennial Divide.

More GPD plants going in at Gateway Elem.

This kind of weeding is what students don’t care for much, can you tell?

Cleaning up after all the weeding and planting.

We are hoping to clean up the whole bed eventually.

Loot from Great Perennial Divide.

Mallinckrodt also got some plants and these students were forced to help with GPD planting by their mother after school. 🙂

Any fieldtrip to Bell is not complete without Petting Fluffy Georgia.

Kindergartners and their parents came for a visit to Bell Garden this past Saturday.

-Punita Patel, Youth Educator

Gardening as an Outdoor Education Option

Posted on April 25, 2016 by sara

Gardening as an outdoor education option provides students with a purpose for their learning. Early spring, students at Mallinckrodt and Shaw VPA broadcasted lettuce seeds in their garden bed and called it a salad bowl. Well, it is looking beautiful and growing wonderfully.

Students learned to harvest the lettuce and with the help from MU extension agent Diana Finlay they made a salad and ate it in their garden this week.

Along the way, they learned science lessons in plant lifecycle and plant parts and picked up valuable life skills such as hard work, focus, persistence, follow though and team work.

As an educator, I am overjoyed when these students describe lettuce from the garden as sweet or beg to eat raw collard greens or thoroughly weed an entire bed full of purple nettle in 15 minutes or less.

Do you have a garden at your school that is underused? Remember, it doesn’t take a lot to get started. At Gateway Greening, we have resources that can help you extend your classroom outdoors through gardening. For weekly inspiration be sure to check our quick little garden videos.

My Week in a Nutshell

Posted on April 12, 2016 by sara

Gateway Greening supports many school gardens and as a youth educator I am fortunate enough to be able to work with several different schools. I wanted to share with you all my week in a nutshell.

Week after spring break in the school garden sometimes looks a lot like this picture below. We had planted kohlrabi in February, carefully thinned it our and even experimented with transplanting some of the seedling and then the spring break happens. In the excitement of the break we forgot to water them the Friday before and and came back to find this. We hope to do better next time.

he preschooler below have read Susan Grisby’s First Peas To The Table in late February and planted their own peas beginning of March. However, a sneaky garden rabbit is also a big fan of peas. Couple of weeks ago students planted onion near the peas hoping to keep the rabbit out but this week they found them eaten again. In the picture below, they are protecting them with a bird net that was donated to the school garden.

A lot of time garden educator finds it challenging to have enough things to plant to keep each student busy and engaged. We have resolved this issue in part by introducing these students to environmental art inspired by Andy Goldsworthy. Here a student has wrapped up the stump in the yarn they found and created a design with natural material found in the garden.

This winter when it was too cold to come out we spent a few class sessions reading Seedsfolks by Paul Fleischman. This book was wonderful and exposed students to many complexity of human nature at a level that they could understand them. Students came out this week and through sidewalk drawings highlighted characters and things that had stuck with them from our reading this past winter. It heartwarming to see the them connecting to this book in this way.

And there is always that one kids who likes to come up to and tell jokes, right teachers? Well he got to write this joke on our new chalkboard fashioned out of an old sign that was in the discard pile. At Gateway Greening, we frequently have these nice metal signs for various reasons so feel free to reach out to us. You will just have to chalkboard paint it.

Our new chalkboard quickly became very popular. Initially I had intended to use it to create a list for tasks that parents can help with if they only had 15-20 minutes during pick up or drop off, however, students have absolutely enjoyed using it unleash their creativity. And it is a good use of the chain linked fence that was not on the pretty list.

There are many ways to water the garden but in a school garden giving students a little something to carry their water in seems to work a lot better than any other method we have used.

There are many reasons to not always clear out your garden beds in fall and winter. One reason is because in early spring when you take your classes out it gives students something to chew on other than knowledge and information. Who says kids don’t like greens?

Another great feature in any community or school garden is to have a place to sit. These stumps were delivered free through city forestry department. This student is reading a book she checked out from the Little Free Library that lives in the garden. It’s all about creating spaces that invite.

When it rained on our flower dissection class Allison Miller took the students indoors and we continued with our lesson. Allison Miller is assistant professor of biology at Saint Louis University.

In conjunction with Missouri Extension agent Diana Finlay, Gateway Greening offers a class at Shaw Elementary where students learn about tasting the food that they grow and learning to eat them. This particular day, I harvested some asparagus from a community bed at Bell garden to have students try them before they planted their own. To my surprise, I say that because it is not often that I hear that kids didn’t like something in the garden, they strongly disliked fresh asparagus. I think that will change if they grow their own and try it. To find out we will have to wait three years, I suppose.

Students were doing blind tasting with Diana and then learning to identify foods using descriptive terms.

This squash sandwich got a 50-50. This particular students didn’t care for it much.

Ms. Diana showing kids what asparagus stems look like.

It’s easy to sneak in language arts in the garden.

Planting some pollinator friendly plants such as Cupflower and Bee-balm.

We learned a little bit about states of matter as we made soaps in our school garden using using the dried herbs from last year and flowers from this spring. Students were so proud to show of their work.

Smelling lemon essential oil.

-Punita Patel, Youth Educator