TOW students get to growing at school
Top of the World Elementary students are getting their hands dirty and learning math and science principles outdoors this year thanks to an in-kind grant the school received from the San Juan Capistrano-based Ecology Center.
Officials with the nonprofit organization that promotes environmental stewardship with hands-on activities selected TOW and five other schools, including Lincoln Elementary in Corona del Mar, for the four-year-old Grow Your Own! garden support program.
Kelly Osborne, a parent, applied for and secured the $10,000 in-kind donation for TOW that covers mentorship, curriculum, materials and resources for teachers to inject garden concepts into their lessons.
Program creators developed a curriculum bank of 21 original K-12 garden lessons that align with both the Common Core and Next Generation Science standards, and a digital catalog of more than 40 instructional gardening articles and how-to resources.
TOW has three garden areas, but the oldest, a 30-year-old plot with eight raised beds, needed some life, Principal Mike Conlon said.
“It definitely needed some revamping,” Conlon said. “The key is [the program] tied into the curriculum. It becomes an extension of the classroom versus kids going out there once a month to weed and pick fruit.”
The beauty of the program, Conlon said, is the Ecology Center designs all the lessons, making the focus on parent and teacher training to relay content to the kids.
Osborne oversees scheduling garden classes and training parents and teachers on the curriculum. Ecology Center staff will visit the school twice a month to assess progress and answer any questions from TOW staff or teachers.
Parents are trained to give lessons if a teacher is not available. The goal is for teachers to incorporate garden principles into three lessons — one each during fall, winter and spring — by year’s end.
Last week, second-grade teacher Tauna LaPierre took her students outdoors for a lesson on dividing a plot into sections.
In groups of four, students used yardsticks to measure 1-foot increments and hammered tacks into the ground as markers.
For a visual reminder, students folded a piece of paper into sections that gave equal space to two seeds. They eventually put the knowledge into practice, placing pieces of paper dotted with holes showing them where to insert seeds into the earth.
The center’s Program Manager Meg Hiesinger started the Grow Your Own! four years ago because many school gardens were not being used.
It started with three schools in 2012 and has blossomed to 20 campuses, reaching more than 12,000 students.
Hiesinger said a key factor in awarding TOW the grant was broad support from Conlon, teachers and parents.
“They have a principal willing to stand behind his desire to get people gardening,” Hiesinger said.
The school also had infrastructure in place.
“You don’t have to have a garden [to be eligible for the grant] but they had the bare bones of a really nice one,” Hiesinger said. “They are looking to use the garden as a holistic center of education.”
Conlon called the response from parents and students “incredible.”
“Right before school started we had a kickoff event and 50 to 75 parents prepped the garden, doing the heavy lifting,” he said.
In addition to educational concepts, gardening is a boost for the mind and body, Hiesinger wrote in the Ecology Center’s journal Evolve.
“School gardens can help reduce obesity and provide exercise,” Hiesinger said. “On the nutrition front, hands-on gardening seems to improve students’ eating habits and fruit and vegetable consumption better than classroom education alone.
“Research also shows that time spent outdoors by children is central to the development of creativity, social and emotional skills and an ecological mindset in adults.”
