The Garden Project
Our garden is the result of a place based service learning project that is sometimes wild and unruly. One of our initial goals was to interest and engage students in school, so that we can ask them to do the hard work of learning foundational skills in literacy, math, and science. What has resulted, however, is far more than we ever imagined. Students harvest beets to pickle for a community supper, make bouquets to take home to their mothers, and host scavenger hunts in an effort to teach first graders the joys of gardening. Kids line up to run the weed whacker and the rototiller, work together to build a variety of structures, repair wheel bearings in trailers, and make games of the most labor intensive tasks.
Students are taking pride in their work, enjoying the simplest forms of giving, and learning new and healthy ways of being. They are working together in teams to solve real life problems, and the project continues to grow and evolve each year depending on student interests.
The Garden Project has allowed students to make genuine connections with the place in which they live, and with the people who live there. Many have come to love and respect this place, and in so doing, have committed to take care of it. It is our intent that this level of commitment will naturally mature into local and global stewardship as our students learn and grow.
Our garden is the result of a place based service learning project that is sometimes wild and unruly. One of our initial goals was to interest and engage students in school, so that we can ask them to do the hard work of learning foundational skills in literacy, math, and science. What has resulted, however, is far more than we ever imagined. Students harvest beets to pickle for a community supper, make bouquets to take home to their mothers, and host scavenger hunts in an effort to teach first graders the joys of gardening. Kids line up to run the weed whacker and the rototiller, work together to build a variety of structures, repair wheel bearings in trailers, and make games of the most labor intensive tasks.
Students are taking pride in their work, enjoying the simplest forms of giving, and learning new and healthy ways of being. They are working together in teams to solve real life problems, and the project continues to grow and evolve each year depending on student interests.
The Garden Project has allowed students to make genuine connections with the place in which they live, and with the people who live there. Many have come to love and respect this place, and in so doing, have committed to take care of it. It is our intent that this level of commitment will naturally mature into local and global stewardship as our students learn and grow.