Smart harvests
School-based gardens take root in Valley as educators link food issues to curriculum
Tuesday, June 30, 20091
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CHESTERFIELD - As the school year wound down at New Hingham Elementary School, students in Jenn Murphy's kindergarten class lined up eagerly to go outside, but it wasn't for extra recess.
These children were heading outside to work. Their garden needed tending.
New Hingham students aren't alone. Public schools from Whately to Williamsburg are using gardens to build upon traditional classroom curriculum and, in some cases, provide healthy food for lunch.
"I would say that the interest around school gardens has grown substantially, especially within the last year or two," said Hope Guardenier, who works as a garden educator in Williamsburg, Easthampton and eight other public schools in the Pioneer Valley through the organization School Sprouts Educational Gardens.
New Hingham's garden produced radishes and lettuce that were on the menu for lunch. New Hingham Principal Michael Fredette's only regret about serving food from the school garden?
"The snow peas are only three days away," he said with a shake of his head, noting that school was coming to a close the next day.
Children enrolled in a summer preschool program and community volunteers will help tend to the garden, so there will be food to harvest when students return. Meanwhile, the school's cafeteria manager plans to pick vegetables over the summer, freeze them and serve them when school resumes.
"We're trying to make it a community effort," said Murphy, who helps oversee the garden. "We're trying to make this a real entry point into the school for members of the community who don't necessarily have a lot of interaction with the school. We have a lot of gardeners in this community."
So far, the community support has been extensive. Members of the PTO and the School Committee, community volunteers, school staff and a newly formed Garden Committee have all help ed with planning, planting, watering, weeding and harvesting. Two Dalton companies, LP Adams, a lumber and building materials company, and Holliday Farms donated wood and soil for the project.
Then, of course, there are the students.
On this Tuesday, Elijah Katanzaro was busy helping his classmates plant garlic and chives. When asked the name of a mysterious plant at the other end of the flower bed, he replied, "Creeping thyme." He paused for a moment, then said matter-of-factly, "In some part of the country, they use it in salad."
Nearby, Emily Goddin pointed out where the class had planted basil. She said she planted zucchini and carrots.
"It's really fun," she added. "I get my hands dirty all the time feeling the different textures."
Real lessons
Preschool teacher Laura Geryk said gardening helps children understand in a concrete way where their food comes from.
"A garden is a place where kids can see something grow from a seed to an actual product," Geryk said. She noted that her students planted seeds in an aquarium, watched the roots grow, then helped to transplant the plants into the beds outside.
The garden itself is actually five raised beds, each 4 by 20 feet, situated behind the school's play structure. The garden is growing zucchini, mint, oregano, basil, chives, tomatoes, carrots, scallions, radishes, cucumbers and beans.
A growing trend
Margaret Christie, special projects director at Community Involved in Sustained Agriculture, the regional nonprofit known as CISA, said her organization frequently receives calls about getting local food into school cafeterias, or organizing field trips to farms.
While CISA itself is not involved with any school gardens, Christie said she is happy to point callers in the right direction.
She has been involved with a small garden at the Whately Elementary School. "I think there are quite a lot of schools that have gardens of various sizes and complexity," she said. Salad greens and other vegetables grown and harvested by the Whately fifth grade were served in a meal at the school's field day.
At the Helen E. James School in Williamsburg, gardening has become a crucial part of the curriculum.
Katherine Sands, who started a program known as Fertile Ground at the school seven years ago, said the garden is a valuable teaching aid - in and out of the classroom.
"We wanted to really work to integrate the garden into the curriculum so that teachers could enhance what they were already teaching," Sands said.
The James School program began with the kindergarten, but quickly spread to other classes. Some teachers used the garden for science experiments. Others relied on it to study topics like Native American studies or language arts, Sands said.
"What teachers really need is time - time to figure out what they can do in the garden. That's what we're trying to figure out how to support," Sands said.
Fertile Ground raises money to fund a garden educator who comes into the school once a week in the fall and spring and also works with the cafeteria manager to identify crops that can be served at lunch.
Guardenier said every school garden is a little different. In some cases, she is the project coordinator. In others, she serves as an advisor to a PTO or becomes the garden educator herself.
"I come up with a program that meets everyone's needs academically and intellectually," she said. For instance, she might design an experiment about soil erosion or plan a crop selection so they can be harvested when school is in session.
In New Hingham, the idea for a garden sprung up after teacher Gretchen Beaupre retired last year. The school wanted to honor Beaupre, an avid gardener, and a school garden seemed a natural way to do it.
Parents Amy and Paul Catanzaro secured a $1,500 Cooley Dickinson Healthy Communities Grant to help finance the project. The school's reading specialist, Danielle Goddin, took on the task of creating a committee that would help coordinate all garden efforts.
That work has proven beneficial to teachers like Murphy who have designed English, art and music lessons around the garden.
"This age group, young children, are innately tuned to the natural world," Murphy said. "It's a very authentic experience for the children to be working in nature and in the dirt."
As she spoke, kindergartner Dylan O'Conner had just finished filling a small plastic wheelbarrow full of soil that was to be taken to a nearby flower bed.
"Ms. Murphy, I'm waiting for someone to take this," he happily exclaimed, before trundling off to do the job himself, living proof of Murphy's words.
Ben Storrow can be reached at benstorrow@gmail.com.
