11 years, the program has grown to include a rigorous garden curriculum aimed at supporting state standards in math, science, English, health and social studies. (Look for a free compendium of these teacher-friendly garden lessons for grades K-5 online this spring!)
Sample Curriculum: Integrating Benchmark Standards into the Garden
ation from the Garden of Wonders Program, 4th
As part of the children’s gradu- graders get to design
and plant the garden and reap what they sow over the summer and into the fall of their 5th
grade (final) year
at Abernethy Elementary. During the winter small groups of students spend several weeks planning out a small garden plot collaborative, determining what crops grow when, how far apart they like to be spaces, how to maximize yield, make the garden beautiful, and design the garden with diversity in mind. Then they get to carefully measure, plot, and map their gar- den bed using math, language, and conceptual skills carefully aligned with the lessons that they are learn- ing in their homeroom class. Soon string is laid out to carefully map out the garden beds into 1 x 1 foot plots and the children start planting greens and cool-loving plants in the garden classroom as early as January, examining the little seeds, carefully reading seed packets, then planting them in little pots in the window.
struggle in the classroom excel in the garden. As kinesthetic and visual learners, those students often become leaders in the outdoor classroom. The most gratifying part of our work is to see the “aha” moments in the garden: suddenly the spark for a love of learning is lit and here, in the garden, students may reap what they sow.
The garden curriculum at Ab- ernethy gives students the oppor- tunity to learn about native plants, the origin of the foods that we eat, the interconnected relationships of micro-organisms in soil, the im- portance of food security, the art of cooking and much more. Students leave Abernethy with a deep sense of the interconnectedness of human and planetary healthy, and a full under- standing of where their food comes from.
“I like the garden because I learn
about plants and animals. We learn the names of plants vegetables and fruits. I also like helping out at the Garden because it’s fun and I get dirty. “
Chelsea, 4th grade
Portland Public School’s Test Kitchen for Higher Quality Food: Abernethy serves as the “test kitch- en” for Portland Public Schools and has created many recipes and menu items that have moved into schools across the district. Interestingly, though average percentage of stu- dents buying hot lunch daily at Port- land schools is about 30 percent, over time lunches from the Abernethy kitchen attract at least 60 percent of the school’s children.
School Chef Nicole Hoffman is
Students also take soil samples and determine how their soil quality is by analyzing how much silt, sand, loam, and clay is in their assigned garden bed. In March they turn all of the winter cover crops into the soil, add compost, and carefully dig and rake the garden to get it all ready for seeding and transplanting.
Time and time again we see that some of the students that
BENCHMARK 3rd
3rd 3rd 3rd 3rd
working closely with Nutrition Services (NS) to create interesting recipes that still meet USDA standards with only $1.07 per meal to work with. Together Hoffmann and NS have focused on sourc- ing better staple ingredients to institutionalize wide-sweeping change: All wheat used is Portland Public Schools, for example, is grown sustainable and locally by Shepherds Grain flour. All chicken is raised locally and hormone-free by Draper Valley farm. Beans and grains are grown by farmers in the Willamette Valley. Yogurt is made in Eugene, Oregon. At this point Portland Public Schools are serving about 40% locally-sourced food.
Here is small sample of how benchmark standards are addressed in third grade garden class: GARDEN CLASS COMPLIMENT graders should know how to design an experiment graders study the city/town that they reside in
Students design a plant experiment with one variable and track the growth over several weeks
Students study Portland’s urban agriculture movement
graders need to know the basic biology of how plants grow Most lessons in spring touch on how plants grow and experiment set- up lessons also provide observation of plants’ growth.
graders need to know how to write letters
graders need to learn how to read food labels and make informed decisions about food
CLEARING 2011
Students write letters to local farmers, then interview those farmers during a classroom visit
Students learn all about serving sizes, food groups, and they harvest and make several dishes from the garden together
www.clearingmagazine.org/online Page 13
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