Local School Gardens
Apple Blossom Elementary: Sebastopol
The garden serves as an outdoor experiential classroom where students participate in growing their own food using sustainable practices that foster connection to the land. With this SGN Garden-Based Education grant (2009-2010), the school hired a Garden Education Coordinator to lead garden activities, organize parent volunteers and plan garden-based science with environmental education staff. Now all students can participate on a weekly basis in the garden.
Garden lessons in each grade integrate exploration of plants, insects, riparian ecosystems and soil science. Fourth grade teachers started a native plant garden that includes ornamental and edible plants to supplement units on CA history and geography. The Environmental Science Education series, developed & funded by the Bay Institute STRAW (Students & Teachers Restoring a Watershed) program and the Twin Hills Apple Blossom Educational Foundation, meets state standards through garden-based laboratory science experiences.
The PTA Green Team organizes volunteer days and raises funds, while the PTA Wellness Committee plans to help integrate garden produce into the school lunch program as the production of the garden increases. With help from the non-profit Compost Club, the lunch waste compost program has cut garbage pick-up in half. 5th graders have compost duty and create five-pound bags of compost to sell for fund raising. Orchard View high school students help construct worm bins, manage compost and teach lessons to elementary students. Planned garden expansion includes up to a dozen 4 x 10 planter boxes and in-ground beds, fruit trees, berry bushes and an herb garden.
Dunbar Elementary: Glen Ellen
The school & community garden sits on almost one-third of an acre on an oak-studded campus. The site boasts 12 irrigated raised beds, a Three Sisters garden, butterfly garden, herb garden, memorial garden, native plants and a small orchard. The outdoor classroom includes an arbor, garden shed, greenhouse, benches and a shade structure –built by parent and community volunteers such as Sonoma Valley Community Action Network. Supplies and professional development have also been funded by Friends of Dunbar School Parent Teacher Organization (FODSPTO), Sonoma Valley Education Foundation, Ruth Riddell Foundation and local businesses.
With this SGN Garden-Based Education grant (2006-2009) garden classes are offered weekly to all K-5 students. The garden curriculum touches on a variety of subjects -- from composting to testing the efficacy of natural pesticides to studying the anatomy of insects and worms. Lessons are tied to state educational standards and augment classroom studies in science (photosynthesis, plant anatomy, geology, weather), language arts (vocabulary, journaling), math (mapping, measurement), social science (agricultural history) and art. In addition, team building and life skills, such as responsibility and common sense, are encouraged through hands-on environmental stewardship.
Nutrition is taught through cooking lessons using garden produce, such as making pesto or cucumber salad. A goal is to bring fresh foods from the garden into the cafeteria and to build a garden kitchen. Students also put on an annual garden party and Farmer's Market, create art in the garden and contribute to community science in the annual Great Backyard Bird Count. Bloomin’ News, a garden newsletter, is published and distributed periodically.
Guerneville School: Guerneville
Guerneville School's year round Garden and Nutrition Program includes a beautiful, sunny 20,500 sq. ft. fenced garden of three raised beds, ten growing beds in ground, a storage shed, and watering system. It is situated in 5.7 acres of riparian wetlands on the Russian River, and surrounded by an old orchard. Curriculum activities in the garden are available to all students and include all aspects of food growing, plant science, cooking and nutrition, wetlands habitat and restoration, native history, journaling, and art. Additional gardening opportunities are provided in our after school Garden Club.
Harmony Elementary / Salmon Creek School: Occidental
A fruit orchard, habitat & fairy gardens, strawberry patches, medicinal & culinary herbs, tea garden, gourd tunnels and production beds make up this one-acre garden. With the help of classroom teachers, assistants and volunteers, K-5 students study science and nutrition in the garden once per week during fall and spring.
From the straw bale kitchen, the garden education coordinator shows young children how to “eat from the rainbow”, using color to associate certain foods with healthy body parts. Older students consider what food is in season and why it’s important to support family farmers. Students love to make sprout wraps, garden sushi, fava bean & kale stir-fry and strawberry smoothies. They get excited about growing their own fruits and vegetables, experience the full cycle of life from planting to harvest, and enjoy eating the delicious foods they’ve grown.
With this SGN Salad Bar grant (2009-2010) the school offers a salad bar that includes daily organic baked potatoes and organic greens from the school’s production beds. The Wellness Committee is actively engaged in transforming the school lunch program to include more local, seasonal, organic produce. Weekly garden-based meals called “Homegrown Lunches” are also offered in the new cafeteria. Skills-based nutrition education called “Nourishing Choices” is integrated in K-8. Newsletters about the garden program, cooking / nutrition news and recipes inform parents and volunteers.
Click below to watch the sildeshow!
Healdsburg Elementary School: Healdsburg
This program offers hands-on garden and nutrition education for all students, pre-kindergarten through second grade. Twelve raised beds, fruit trees, compost bins, worm boxes, a greenhouse, a chicken pen, herb and fairy gardens, and a willow hut complete this garden. In addition to a garden education coordinator, the school hired a nutrition and kitchen garden teacher (a registered dietician with a master's degree in Public Health Nutrition and Maternal & Child Health Care). Nutrition and science lessons from University of California’s TWIGS curriculum are tied into food preparation and cooking activities.
Funds from this SGN Cooking From the Garden grant (2009-2010) supplement garden food through local farmers such as Carrot Top Farm and Love Farms, and are used to purchase additional cooking supplies. Each month one aspect of the garden is highlighted in the curriculum and cooking coincides with garden themes. During seed gathering time students make trail mix or roast pumpkin seeds; while studying root vegetables they prepare dishes using carrots or beets. With help from other gardens, they produce enough assorted vegetables to fire up a soup pot regularly. Every kindergarten class makes sorbets and lemonade with strawberries, salsa and soup with tomatoes or butternut squash. “When children are introduced to fresh, locally grown foods, which they prepare from Garden-to-Table, they benefit -- from planting that first seed to sharing the food together.”
La Tercera Elementary School Children's Garden: Petaluma
La Tercera Elementary School Children's Garden is currently comprised of three main areas: the K-garden, the Courtyard containers and the Peace garden. They also have a greenhouse. The K-garden is made up of twelve raised beds and a less formal perimeter garden bed. The children use the greenhouse during the school year to sow vegetable and flower seeds for the gardens and plant sales. More garden spaces are being developed all the time with the involvement of children, faculty and parents volunteers. The garden buddy program pairs older children with the younger children to work in the gardens.
McKinley Elementary: Petaluma
This site includes both a school and community garden, with over 20 raised beds divided between classroom and family plots. In addition, the school program encourages family participation through garden classes, a weekly lunchtime garden club, after school garden activities (through Boys & Girls Club) and as summertime stewards.
Petaluma Bounty was a founding partner in planning and building the garden. Over 50 volunteers helped prepare the soil and build raised beds on the first workday! Community members donated materials for the garden shed and tools. The Bounty Farm, an urban educational farm located within walking distance, also furthers school students’ exploration and studies through activities including beekeeping, small farm animals, a flower growing business, planting, harvesting and all aspects of daily farm life.
With almost 90% of the students qualifying for free or reduced lunches, families are now able to provide healthy food on a regular basis, many of them growing both winter and summer crops. By making salads and cooking from the garden, children are learning to eat vegetables they have grown with their parents and classmates.
With this SGN Garden-Based Education grant (2009-2010) the garden education coordinator can work more closely with teachers to develop year-round lesson plans that support classroom learning, and act as a liaison with community organizations to enhance the program. Weekly gardening for each class integrates state educational standards with FOSS and Life Lab designed lessons on plant growth, water, insects and life cycles – concepts that Principal Sherry Devine says “cannot be duplicated with a textbook.”
McNear Elementary School: Petaluma
The Life Sciences Garden is a living, growing classroom helping to educate children about the natural world. The edible garden includes native plants, habitat gardens, and salad production beds. There are 12 raised beds dedicated to vegetables, 16 barrels, a 20-person bamboo bean tipi and various trellises for herbs and other companion plants. Included are three different kinds of table grapes (all seedless, of course), a kiwi, five barrels of raspberries, three boxes of strawberries, two beautiful blueberry shrubs and three Meyer lemon trees.
With this SGN Garden Based-Education grant, students learned about soil conservation, crop rotation, composting and nutrition in a hands-on environment. The garden education coordinator integrates the school curriculum (including FOSS life sciences) into garden lessons. The goal is for K-6 students to spend time in the garden each week, participating in a variety of center-based activities appropriate to each grade level. After school enrichment includes cooking classes and composting/ recycling/ repurposing from the garden.
An Eagle Scout troop, SRJC horticulture department, an SSU intern, a dedicated garden committee and other volunteers have all contributed to the picnic tables, chalkboard, display case and lessons in the garden classroom.
With additional funding from Petaluma Education Foundation the garden program plans to develop learning prompts to include signage for self-guided lessons with information, questions and tools like measuring tape and magnifying lenses.
Northwest Preparatory School @ Piner Olivet: Santa Rosa
Northwest Prep is a public charter middle/high school that offers ‘Ag/Science and Sustainability’ as an elective for all students as part of the Agricultural Science and Health Careers programs. Approximately twenty students meet each day for almost two hours. Students learn about all aspects of agricultural science and food systems including: garden development, nutrition education, and cooking from the garden. In addition to some fruit trees, students grow a variety of herbs, flowers and vegetables in the hoop house and raised beds, which they eat, give away to students/families and sell at their farmers market.
This SGN Cooking From the Garden grant (2008-2009) was used to purchase cooking equipment as well as supplemental produce through the CSA at Laguna Farm (link to http://www.lagunafarm.com). Another grant from Slow Foods and OXO supplied additional cooking equipment and garden tools. Previously, equipment was borrowed from staff, or meals were cooked on a camp stove in the garden or classroom. Now, with the use of Piner Olivet School’s industrial kitchen, the program is fully functioning – even with canning capabilities. Students cook meals -- such as pasta and sauce, coconut curry vegetables, veggie soups, salsa, stir fry, and apple sauce, for the class or for the entire school (on salad day, pasta day or salsa day).
This program has fulfilled its vision for students to create healthy habits as they prepare meals for students, staff and the community with fresh, local food: “Once the kids try something they’ve grown themselves but have never eaten before, like Swiss Chard, they never forget it. And they often come back for seconds!”
Oak Grove School: Graton
Grades K-5 garden once per week in the outdoor classroom. Students plant seeds, tend plants and harvest food while learning the origins of particular crops, their historical uses and nutritional values. In addition to a dozen raised beds and containers in the main garden, there is a raised garden bed outside each of the 12 classrooms. Subjects such as math, science and social studies are incorporated into the garden experience. Children also learn the lessons of good nutrition and health through direct experience between the crops they grow and the food they eat.
With this SGN Salad Bar grant (2007-2009), a salad bar coordinator was hired to work closely with the garden coordinator in order to bring more food from the garden to the table. Salad greens, fava beans, broccoli, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, onions, leeks, potatoes, cabbage and carrots are harvested from the school garden. The salad bar coordinator organizes student and parent volunteers to help prepare and serve hearty soups and salads that supplement school lunches. The coordinator also communicates with local farmers who deliver supplemental produce to the school and on occasion help out in the kitchen.
With one classroom per week involved hands-on in the kitchen, it is estimated that 80-100% of the salad bar is consumed by students! Minestrone soup, pesto pasta and hard-boiled eggs with salad are a few favorites. The school’s exemplary compost and recycling program uses biodegradable plates, bowls and utensils purchased with the grant. This successful program is now self sufficient through fundraising by the school, including an annual silent auction and plant sales from Willowside School.
Valley of the Moon Children’s Community School: Santa Rosa
Valley of the Moon Children’s Home addresses the needs of Sonoma County’s abused, abandoned and neglected children. Housing units, a full commercial kitchen and a dining area were constructed in 2005 for the Children’s Home for foster youth. The Home serves over 400 children annually. Near the garden’s front entrance a habitat pond welcomes visitors. The garden, including three large gopher-proof planters, now has a typical summer bounty of raspberries, lemon cucumbers, bell peppers, onions, strawberries, beans, eggplant, kale, squash, pumpkins, melons, corn and hundreds of tomatoes! A pizza garden includes basil, garlic and Sungold tomatoes.
Children’s garden groups meet once per week for two hours to work, learn and eat in the garden. Their favorite part is the harvest, but they are involved in every aspect of gardening -- from planting to weeding and watering. A special group of volunteers, calling themselves the “Cha Chas”, meet with students once a month in the school and community garden program to incorporate nutrition information and share recipes. These women donate all the food, prepare meals from scratch with the children and eat together with them as a family. This SGN Cooking From the Garden grant (2008-2009) enabled the school to purchase additional cooking equipment and inspired them to expand the garden. The garden education coordinator and the chef at the Children’s Home now use produce from the garden in creative ways to prepare meals for the children: “The kids love the garden and eating the vegetables with their meals!”
CLICK HERE to watch a video of the Valley of the Moon Children’s Community School Garden.
Willowside School Nursery: Santa Rosa
Willowside students are very fortunate to be able to work and learn about plant species, propagation and care in a real nursery. Every other week, students spend one period working with nursery coordinators Misty Fiddler and Jan Lochner. The program is supported by monthly weekend plant sales.
School Gardens Index