School Dedicates Garden Classroom

When students return to Citrus Glen Elementary School after the winter break, they will be studying life science in a new outdoor classroom, thanks to the generosity of more than a dozen community organizations.

Principal Elke Fedde, Ventura Unified Supt. Joseph Spirito and the school’s teachers and students participated in the dedication of the garden at the Darling Road campus on Tuesday.

Fedde said her students will participate in projects with their teachers in the garden, where they will learn the fundamentals of agriculture by planting fruits, vegetables and flowers.

The land on which the school was built has a long history of farming, as does the surrounding community, and the teachers intend to pass along those traditions to their students, Fedde said.

Fedde said she hopes the youngsters will learn to appreciate how much work goes into growing the produce they purchase at the grocery.

“This is a way to educate kids, using a garden that they visit every day,” said Bob Tripp, spokesman for the Ventura Mobile Home Owners Assn., which donated $5,000 to the garden project. “They learn decision-making skills, how plants live and how to make them grow. We feel that this helps the kids a lot because they learn about agriculture and their roots in this area.”

The hands-on learning environment, he said, is much more exciting for youngsters than books on the same subject.

The project also received $2,000 from the Citrus Glen PTA, $1,000 from PSWC Architect Group and $700 from the Hansen Trust, along with donated materials from local businesses.

The 5,000-square-foot garden occupies a parcel at the west end of the campus. In the next five years, the garden will grow to twice that size, said John Lamar, a landscape designer who is coordinating the project.

The garden contains 22 irrigated planting beds, one for each classroom at the school.

Each class will determine which fruit, vegetable or flower it intends to plant and what is needed to prepare the soil before planting begins in late January.

Teacher Tonia Bailey said she looks forward to sharing the firsthand experience of gardening with her students and watching them make a human connection to the environment.