With both Earth Day and spring coming up soon, many people are beginning to plant their home gardens. Though PA doesn’t have a school garden yet, many local schools do.
Currently, the company Seeds of Change™ is awarding school and community gardens grants to begin or sustain their gardens. One local school, Loring Community School, is eligible for one of these grants. Their garden is run solely off donations.
With the food that they grow, they teach the students how to produce and prepare their own food.
This spring, they’re attempting a huge project. Their profile on seedsofchangegrant.com states, “This spring, Loring is proud to be the first school in the district to house beehives on school grounds! Along with Pollinate MN, we will teach the environmental importance and benefits of honey bees and add to the well-rounded education of gardening at all stages. This grant will help secure funding for the beehive project costs, along with replenishing garden equipment and resources.”
Their garden includes compost boxes, potato and lettuce boxes, herbs, fruit trees, willow trees, and three chickens, which they borrow from a local farm.
The students at Loring go with their classes at certain times of the day to help out with the garden. These sessions usually include three different ‘stations’, where the kids learn more about their environment and the food they eat.
One of the kindergarten gardeners Kayla stated while learning how to cut potatoes, “After this, we’re going to make a salad and eat it!”
Along with their main classroom garden, many of the other teachers have in-class projects where the kids grow their own plants.
A garden like this would work well at PA, especially with the school’s focus on learning and compassion. As the director of the Loring garden stated, “It’s so important for us to care for the earth we live on, because even if we didn’t cause a problem, it’s still up to us to help be the solution. If we do this, we’ll create a better world for everyone.”
https://seedsofchangegrant.com/
(“Seeds of Change™ Grant Program.” Seeds of Change Grant. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2017.)
Great article.
Maybe pa leadership could site visit loring elementary and learn how something like this can be achieved. I admire the energy and learning enthusiasm of these kids
I love this article. I think it’s so important to teach children (and even adults!) the importance of caring for the earth. Way to go Loring!
I was so happy to see that the Loring program won the “Seeds of Change” grant out of so many entries. Their program is only going to get better!