Vision

We are a small elementary school in Abbotsford, British Columbia, located in a rural agrarian community. In 2021, our school and the surrounding community were significantly impacted by unprecedented flooding. Many farms lost crops and livestock, and homes in the area sustained major damage requiring a great deal of restoration or even rebuilding in some cases. During this time, our highway, which is also the main artery for the transportation of goods, was closed. Many grocery stores, gas stations, and businesses could not access shipments and people were concerned for a short time about our food supply in surrounding cities. What came out of this challenging time for our students and community was gratitude for farmers and a deeper appreciation of the work they do. There was also a growing awareness about the importance of sustainability.

Our goal was to create a program at our school that would highlight food sustainability and security for communities with experiential and hands-on learning opportunities. We have a large greenhouse that can operate year-round as well as an outdoor growing space that we wanted to rebuild and expand to provide more area to produce a greater harvest. We have partnered with local experts to gain knowledge and maximize our efforts to grow food and other plants throughout the year.

Action

In the past year, students and families have worked together to restore damaged garden beds, create new growing spaces and revitalize our greenhouse. Students have been involved and responsible for selecting crops to grow in our space as well as timing planting plans so that they can grow food all season long.

This year, we tripled our outdoor garden beds in size. We also ordered new greenhouse tables for our greenhouse that will allow for better drainage and expand our growing space indoors as well.
We partnered with Dr. Michelle Superle from the University of the Fraser Valley and implemented a literacy program that she designed called “Dig For Your Rights”. In this program, we used picture books with themes of food, agriculture, land use, and communities to prompt discussion and reflection around food security, food sovereignty, and sustainability. Students explored children’s rights related to basic needs and their place in the food system. Grades K-3 students created murals that depicted their understanding of where our food comes from, and the intermediate students created dioramas of the local food system.

Reflection & Celebration

At this point in the year our gardens are planted and growing. Families and students will help to maintain the crops throughout the growing season. Our produce will not be ready for a while, but we plan to process some of it in our classrooms to share at our school, offer fresh items to local community members, and celebrate with our entire school community in the fall with a “Fall Harvest” event. We plan to continue to grow our project and add our own bees to our agriculture classroom and expand our gardens and growing potential with a small orchard.

Our students have enjoyed being able to spend “classroom time” outdoors and learning how to grow:
“I am so lucky I get to go to a school that I get to spend the day in the garden, we never did this in my old school!” – Malcom, Grade 2
“This year Barrowtown Elementary started an agricultural program. We have bunnies, chicks, a greenhouse and a garden. My favourite part is all of it. It’s my favourite part because I’m glad that our school is different from most schools because most schools don’t have this. I think it’s important to learn agricultural stuff because when we’re older we should know how to do this kind of thing.” – Taylor, grade 5.

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