Growing School Gardens is a partnering project that increases nutrition and garden education for students by empowering educators to meet their school garden goals. Inter-Faith Food Shuttle works with schools to deliver hands-on education to students, train teachers, provide after school programming, and increase access to fresh produce through gardening education. This year, as the school year gets underway, the Growing School Gardens initiative is collaborating with ten elementary schools in Wake and Durham counties to determine sustainability plans that make garden education a part of their curriculum.
Tenisha McLean is the Food Shuttle’s Agriculture Education Coordinator. She spends her days developing lesson plans and implementing them in the garden and the classroom with students and their teachers. On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Tenisha spent some time at Bugg Magnet Elementary School in Raleigh, preparing kindergarten and 2nd grade teachers for the September Growing School Gardens lesson. She introduced herself to Ms. Mitchell, a kindergarten teacher, and they proceeded to work through the steps of the “Save Seeds with Me” lesson. Ms. Mitchell said that her students spent some time in the Bugg school garden last year, but as most of the school year was done remotely, it was not the same as what she anticipates being able to accomplish with the Growing School Gardens program.
Ms. Mitchell, Kindergarten teacher at Bugg Magnet Elementary School
The curriculum for Growing School Gardens is developed by Tenisha and Ayn Corrigan, Agriculture Education Manager for the Food Shuttle. Integrating each grade level’s standards of learning, the purpose of the curriculum is to sustain the garden through grade level engagement. Each lesson focuses on different actions that need to happen to keep the garden going, with some exploratory lessons geared toward creating understanding the garden as an ecosystem. If every grade level does one lesson a month, or if each grade level teacher just commits to doing one lesson a quarter, the school can have a more widely supported garden system.
The grade level lessons vary from the “Save Seeds with Me” plan for kindergarten to one on garden pests for 1st grade to harvesting sweet potato greens in 2nd grade, all the way to square foot sowing in 4th grade, and so forth. Each lesson includes learning objectives, preparation, materials needed, guiding questions, and grade level appropriate vocabulary, as well as lesson activity instructions.
Preparing a Growing School Gardens lesson
Tenisha says her goal in is to engage students and staff in the garden in an integrative and interactive way. “I want the teachers to see the garden as an extension of their classrooms and for the students to get excited and invested in the fruits, vegetables, and other plants they'll grow.”
Tenisha McLean, Agriculture Education Coodinator
The Growing School Gardens program goes to the point of need by partnering with school that have a 50% or higher free and reduced lunch rate. Schools must also have administrative support with at least one other point of contact inside the school.