Vision

A green area near the front of the school was paved over during a construction project. The students at the school loved this area very much and decided that adding plants back to this area could make it a pleasant space for learning outdoors, as well as encouraging wildlife such as birds and insects back to the area. The paved area would heat up the school instead of the cooling effect that the trees in the area had before they were removed. By adding two planters on top of the asphalt, we could reduce the heating effect of this space and make it more pleasant as an outdoor learning space.

Action

Galvanized steel planters were more expensive than anticipated, so the group was only able to purchase one of them instead of two. Students then looked around the school yard for other ideas and found an older cedar wood garden box that was still in good shape but was getting wobbly and in danger of falling apart. Cedar and spruce wood was purchased and used to reinforce the wooden garden box and it was moved by the students to its new location in the paved area. The group was able to source some leftover pieces of landscape fabric to staple to the bottom of the wooden garden box, to prevent any soil from washing out of the garden bed after it was placed on the paved area. Gravel was added to both garden beds (steel and wood) to help with drainage at the bottom of the garden beds. Luckily, there was some garden soil leftover from another garden project, so the two garden beds were filled with that soil as well as the addition of some purchased soil to top up the two garden beds. Plants were sourced in three ways: one class used donated seeds to start a variety of vegetables, herbs, and flowers; a variety of native perennials friendly to pollinators had been saved from the previous green space before the construction project; and some members of the school community donated native perennials to the project. Students at the school designed and painted a sign for the gardens that would inform visitors that the gardens were encouraging pollinators. The two garden beds were planted by students at the school and they will be continuing to water, weed, and harvest the plants throughout the summer and into the fall.

Reflection & Celebration

The students at the school learning how creative thinking and teamwork were able to solve many of the problems they encountered during the project. Some food crops such as cucumber, cantaloupe, summer squash, lettuce, basil, onion, spinach, and dill were planted in one of the gardens and students are looking forward to harvesting some of these crops in June (basil, lettuce, spinach and dill) as well as later on in the summer (cucumber, cantaloupe, summer squash, and onion). Students have learned that they were able to turn a hot, uninviting patch of pavement into a space that benefits wildlife and that may be able to produce food for the community. The students are looking forward to expanding the garden area in the future.