Whole Child Education Through School Gardens
Students thrive in outdoor learning environments as their abilities to focus, cooperate, socialize, and gain self-confidence soar. Our school gardens present an incredible opportunity to facilitate educating the whole child while they learn to integrate math, science, art, health, and social studies with the natural world.
Presently, GUSD contracts with Explore Ecology to hire and train garden educators to serve at each of the nine school sites, all of which currently have gardens. Providing resources for the gardens fall largely on the PTAs at each school, and the amount of money our nine schools can fundraise through PTA significantly varies from school to school. To better educate the whole child, including social-emotional learning, through the school garden program, GEF is seeking funds to equitably provide resources for the school gardens.
Schools that serve the highest numbers of low-income students need much more than a few seeds, some shovels, and a truckload of mulch; these gardens need to be relocated to be accessible to all students. This effort involves moving water lines, installing a drip-watering system, and building raised beds. The beds require wood and soil, seeds, seedlings, mulch, and gardening tools such as trowels, watering cans, and gloves. To allow the students to fully utilize and appreciate the outdoor learning environment of the garden, a gardening table and flexible seating will also be needed. Finally, some schools will need a gardening shed to better care for and store all of their gardening tools and materials.
Whole child education emphasizes the overall growth and development of a child to achieve success and happiness beyond academic aptitude. Whole child education fosters different learning styles and pathways to knowledge. Through whole-child education, a student’s social, emotional, physical, psychological, and academic well-being are equally valued and developed, resulting in aware, well-balanced, happy and secure children.
Please join us as we celebrate educating the whole child and enhancing our outdoor classrooms by making a donation to improve the school gardens at our nine elementary school sites.