The Problem
Our school is located in a low socio-economic area where families struggle to have enough healthy food. Our project will help ensure that families have access to vegetables which can be placed on their tables.
Our school is located in a low socio-economic area where families struggle to have enough healthy food. Our project will help ensure that families have access to vegetables which can be placed on their tables.
My fourth grade students will spend time evaluating our community needs in regard to plants, animals and humans. We will learn that all three entities need each other for survival and longevity. The students will be guided into planning a school garden on an area of our playground that is no longer used. We will partner with a non-profit coffee shop in our community that has begun their own small garden to assist local community members. The expertise of these local community members will be transferred to our school garden. The garden will host raised beds for planting vegetables and pollinating flowers. We will start a Fourth Grade Garden Club that can commit to working in the garden during June, July and August to sustain its growth and development. At the beginning of the new school year, the students will visit the garden to harvest our vegetables. These vegetables will be donated to our local non-profit coffee shop that hosts a "giving farm cart" where community members can help themselves to fresh vegetables. The students in our classroom will be fully engaged in the planning, designing, creating and tending of the garden with the final goal of harvesting and donating back to the community. The pollinating flowers will attract the bees that will continue to keep our garden sustainable for years. In year two, we will enlarge our garden and plant flowering trees for more pollination.