School Garden Archives - Page 2 of 4

Mindfulness in the School Garden

Posted on April 28, 2017 by sara

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 sara

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 sara

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 sara

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 Showers in School Gardens

Posted on April 11, 2017 by sara

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.

Greening the STL Map Room

Posted on March 31, 2017 by sara

Gateway Greening staff members worked with STL Map Room Site Coordinator Emily Catedral to mark current St. Louis LRA locations as part of their contribution to the STL Map Room project.

This week the Gateway Greening staff found a new way to highlight school & community gardens throughout St. Louis City – by teaming up with the STL Map Room project!

STL Map Room is a collaborative project between COCA (Center of Creative Arts) and The Office for Creative Research. On March 3, the partnership took over the shuttered Stevens Middle School in St. Louis, MO to create the St. Louis Map Room: a community space for creating and exploring original, interpretive maps of the city that reflect the personal stories and lived experiences of its residents.

Gateway Greening Youth Educator Meg Holmes marking school garden locations throughout St. Louis City.

Last Thursday several Gateway Greening staff members spent the morning working with Emily Catedral of the STL Map Room to create a 10’x10’ canvas map of St. Louis City which our experience as urban agriculture advocates in the city.

It was a powerful experience as Catedral worked with staff to pull up a range of map data dating back to as early as the late 1800s and covering a range of topics: public transportation, residential and industrial zoning, racial distribution, public income and healthcare census records, and more. By adding a selection of school and community gardens throughout the city and projecting historical map data over top, it didn’t take long to observe how the locations of currently existing community gardens often correlated to St. Louis City’s zoning and financial policy decisions made as far back as the early 1900s.

After a great deal of debate and discussion, our staff narrowed down the list of possible data points that could be included to focus on current LRA land distribution, existing public green spaces, and a selection of school and community gardens throughout the city. The Gateway Greening map has joined others created by schools, non-profits, and the general public from around St. Louis and will be on display at the Stevens Middle School until April 9, 2017. Afterwards, the maps will be displayed in various locations throughout St. Louis for an undefined amount of time before being added to the City Archives.

Gateway Greening’s contribution to the STL Map Room project, highlighting many of St. Louis City’s school & community gardens, public green spaces, and LRA land.

Discover more about this fascinating project by visiting the STL Map Room website, or find out how you can participating by contacting Emily Catedral at [email protected].

Volunteers Spring Cleaning School Gardens

Posted on March 28, 2017 by sara

Saint Louis Public Schools have spring break next week, so students throughout the district have been tackling big projects in their gardens. Some of the garden projects were simply too big for students to complete during class time. Thanks to a bit of help from some amazing volunteers, the school gardens will be ready for warmer weather and planting after spring break.

Clay Elementary

Blog - Spring cleaning Mar 2017 01 — It may have been freezing, but the Washington University Danforth Scholars were a cheerful and energetic volunteer group!

Last week the Washington University Danforth Scholars braved cold weather to spent a day of their own spring break working outside in freezing temperatures at Clay Elementary last week. When they signed up, they did not anticipate needing warm layers and hand warmers, but nonetheless they worked hard throughout the school day!

The Danforth Scholars kept warm by moving mulch and compost, and tackled a tricky rebuild project of older raised garden beds. Throughout the day, these volunteers also visited classes and assisted with lessons on weather and ecosystems, pairing up with third graders as they made their weekly weather and plant observations. It may have been colder than expected, but the Clay Elementary students had a great deal of fun with the Danforth Scholars volunteers.

Gateway Elementary

Throughout the week, middle school students from the Wyman Center, a teen outreach and support program, also worked in various Gateway Greening school gardens to prepare for spring. On Thursday, Ferguson Middle Schoolers from the Wyman Center volunteered at Gateway Elementary. The Ferguson students worked with Gateway Elementary’s fourth grade students to finish installing new garden beds, moving endless buckets of soil and compost into new double-high beds and pulled out piles of weeds.

Along the way, Gateway fourth graders fearlessly held giant earthworms and taught the middle school students about worms, and the Ferguson middle schoolers demonstrated excellent wheelbarrow skills. It was truly a community event with partners from MU Extension and Gateway Michael School coming out to work in the school garden with the students.

For students to get the most out of their gardens, extra help is needed throughout the school year, but especially in spring. It takes considerable effort preparing the soil, moving mulch onto pathways, and expanding garden beds before the growing season begins.

Blog - Spring Cleaning March 2017 03 — Endless buckets of fresh compost and plenty of humor at Gateway Elementary’s school garden last week.

Volunteer in a School Garden

Volunteering in a school garden is an excellent way to learn more about programs in your local schools. Individuals and groups are welcome to volunteer in school gardens. You can help during big garden work days or implement a garden lesson. Please contact Gateway Greening Volunteer Manager Megan Moncure to learn more.

Compost Challenge at Mallinckrodt Academy

Posted on March 17, 2017 by sara

Mallinckrodt Academy’s Compost Bin with a fresh layer of “greens” to balance its mix.

Whether you enjoy a good steak or are a vegetarian, the truth is we all rely on healthy soil in which to grow our food (or our cows food). Simply put, we would not be able to eat without soil. Over the last week the fourth graders at Mallinckrodt Academy have been learning about the importance of soil to our world.

Depending on the local climate, it can take hundreds of years to develop one inch of topsoil. That can be difficult to demonstrate in the classroom. Fortunately, there’s a way for students to speed this process along – composting in the school garden.

Healthy compost consists of nitrogen rich greens: food scraps, grass clippings, and weeds that haven’t yet gone to seed, layered with carbon filled browns: dried leaves, newspaper, and straw, all mixed with a bit of water and soil (to inoculate new batches of compost with microorganisms that will help to decompose the compost over time). This week the fourth graders of Mallinckrodt spent some quality time observing their compost bin, and discovered that the balance of “browns” and “greens” was off. A compost bin that is piled high with mostly oak leaves would break down eventually, but not anytime soon. When the students were asked how they could remedy the imbalance, the answer was clear – the food scraps from their lunches would be perfect!

Lunchroom to Compost

Mallinckrodt Academy has had an active school composting program for the last few years, but in recent weeks the school has streamlined their method to great success.

When the program was first implemented, it began with a single bucket placed near the cafeteria trash can during lunch. This quickly proved to be too messy, leading to extra work for the janitorial staff.

Mallinckrodt students separating their personal food scraps for composting during lunch.

After weeks of enduring this method, the lunchroom staff came up with a workable solution. Rather than using just one bucket placed near the trash, cafeteria staff purchased small buckets like the kind used for sanitizing water to put at each table. With a few announcements during lunch from Youth Educator Meg Holmes, Senior Jake Norman the spanish teacher, and even Mr. DeAndre Thomas the principal, students soon knew to throw excess food they weren’t going to eat into the compost. Even more importantly, the students knew which food could be composted (apple cores, bread crust, peas) and which food stuffs could not (trash, chicken nuggets, milk).

Although the students of Mallinckrodt experienced a few growing pains when first beginning to compost their food scraps, the school as a whole now diverts several pounds a week from the trashcan to the compost bin! The school has even gone so far as too instigate “Waste Not Wednesdays” which has become a positive way to include the whole school, students and staff, to care for their garden and the earth.

-Meg Holmes, Gateway Greening Youth Educator

Gateway Greening challenges each of our In-Network School and Community Gardens to take on The Compost Challenge in 2017. Are you game?

Additional Resources:

Looking for more information on composting or implementing school composting programs? Check out these resources, or email our Educators at [email protected].

Video: An overview of composting

Video: This Week in the Community Garden – Composting

Video: Composting at Busch Middle School of Character

Weather won’t stop us!

Posted on March 11, 2017 by sara

What happens when the weather makes it challenging to take class outside and into the school garden? We bring the garden inside to class! Last week Gateway Greening Youth Educator Lucy Herleth, when faced with some of St. Louis’ recent cold and windy weather, brought the garden into the Autistic classroom at Clay Elementary School.

The plan for the day had been to work with students in the Autistic Classroom to plant peas as part of the First Peas to the Table competition. This yearly event challenges elementary students throughout St. Louis City and County to plant peas in their school garden. Although the students are competing for a variety of awards, the main goal is to see who can harvest their peas first, just like Thomas Jefferson did.

When weather changed the day’s plans Miss Lucy opted to bring the lesson inside instead, teaching students how peas grow in the garden and the different names of the plant parts through fun activities.

Author Susan Grigsby’s book, First Peas to the Table, serves as the inspiration for Gateway Greening’s annual First Peas to the Table competition for elementary students throughout St. Louis.

First, the students pretended to be itty-bitty seeds in the soil, waiting for warm weather and rain to tell us it was time to “wake up.” Then, everyone slowly began to stretch out as they began to grow stems and leaves that stretch-stretch-stretched for the sky! With everyone wide awake and ready to listen, it was time for a closer look at plant parts using real plants!

Earlier in the morning, Miss Lucy discovered that several turnips had managed to over winter in the school garden and were thriving. By harvesting a few of the turnips and bringing them indoors: leaves, stems, roots, soil and all, the students were able to apply what they had just learned from “growing like peas.” Each student explored the turnip plants, using their hands to feel the string-like root hairs and to knock on the sturdy taproot. Several ruffled the leaves and leaned in close to smell them just as we would a bouquet of fresh flowers. And once everyone had finished to explore the turnips’ outsides, the class washed and dried them so that each student could taste both roots and greens, right there in the classroom. All of the students had fun using descriptive words to tell Miss Lucy what they thought of the taste.

Blog - Weather won't stop us 02 — Turnips overwintered in Clay Elementary’s School Garden – the perfect prop for an indoor lesson about plant parts!

The weather may not have co-operated, but that didn’t stop the students in the Autistic Classroom at Clay Elementary! They love to get hands-on and elbow deep in plants and soil just like any other kid their age, and indoor days are no exception.

Learn More:

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.

Teacher Spotlight on LaTosha Hayes of Gateway Elementary

Posted on February 24, 2017 by sara

Interview with LaTosha Hayes, 4th grade teacher at Gateway Elementary in St. Louis, MO, about how she personally became involved with the school’s garden.

How long have you been gardening?

This will be my first full year. A few years ago, another group came in and started working with us in the greenhouse but that wasn’t a full year.

What sparked your interest?

Learning about the value of eating healthy and the harm it causes when we don’t. I’ve been a teacher for 11 years and have come to realize that we’re targeting curriculum backward. “Data Driven” is a mantra that’s heard in many districts. Unfortunately not too many schools or districts are focused on many factors that impact education such as nutrition.

We had a dental clinic visit the school one time and there were kids with multiple cavities, it was when I learned what a root canal was, and obviously it all came back to what the kids are eating and their oral hygiene. We know a lot of the things are the shelves are not good for kids and so they don’t have the nutrients that they need to come to school ready to learn. Some kids are inattentive, hyperactive, unmotivated, tired, and/or hungry. Even though we know the importance of eating healthy foods and how it can impact student’s education, teachers are still evaluated on classroom management and whether students achieve academic success. We need to focus on what’s literally going into them. We can help kids succeed by educating them about food and preparation. Taking students outside to garden lets them get natural sunlight, burn calories, explore, care for living things, and what everyone loves to do – EAT. I think all students prefer edible assignments.

We need nutrition education as much as PE and counselors and it needs to start in Pre-K. Teaching kids how to grow and cook their food and that will bring families back to the kitchen table. It is prevention rather than intervention and treatment for diet related illnesses.

What is the most worthwhile part of gardening with your class?

Empowering students through nutrition and developing healthy habits that can positively impact generations to come, having them do something other than play video games and watching TV at home, to have an interest in growing their own food. I look forward to having them investigate and come up with questions. I think that they will start making changes in their lives and share it with others and it will have a domino effect on the community. I want students to talk to each other but I want them to talk about healthy things, like food.

The other thing that is good about this process is that students are learning that I am still a student as well. They are observing that even adults are learning and we all have road blocks and anxiety and need others to help us learn.

I am looking forward to learning more about the science of plants (composting, cross pollination, etc.) and getting out of the classroom, getting students out of their seats. That is where education really starts, from birth, genuine learning occurs in the home, neighborhood, and community.

Kids learning how to garden will yield benefits in the classroom because students will have better nutrition and be better rested.

What are you looking forward to planting with your class?

We are going to grow peas but I want to grow a bit of everything, maybe blueberries. I definitely want to grow green leafy vegetables, spinach, collards, kale, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, melons. I want a colorful garden so students will be inspired to have a colorful plate and learn which fruit or vegetable is providing what nutrient.

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

A curriculum. All of the teachers I’ve talked to have an interest but don’t have the know-how and need support. Curriculum and support from GGI. It would be great if the district adopted a garden/nutrition curriculum for elementary school so children would develop healthy habits.

Interview with LaTosha Hayes conducted by Kathleen Carson, Gateway Greening Education Manager, in February 2017.