Every School Needs A Garden

Second in a series from old Organic Gardening Magazines.

My father was cleaning out his night stand and found a stack of 1973 OG magazines. Knowing I was into that sort of thing, gave them to me to read. Now, it takes me quite some time to get through them, but I'll get there!

Here are links associated with similar programs - from around the world. Very few such programs exist in the US. How sad is that?

Ireland
Canada

Here In The US
Rhode Island
Also a good resource for starting a school gardening program
California
Arizona
Oregon

Since this article is so long, I’ve edited some of the examples. But no content was changed, just omitted for space.

Every School Needs A Garden
Join the 1973 effort to put a garden into every schoolyard - starting with the one in your own neighborhood
By Jerome Goldstein

Last spring, students at the Helen Keller Junior High in Royal Oak, Michigan, planned and planted a 20x25 foot garden in the school courtyard after a series of organic gardening sessions. With the help of teacher Ronald Canton, they planted radishes, lettuce, peas, gourds and pumpkins.

Environmental education specialists Bud Souders and Tom Fegely of East Penn School District in Emmaus PA, used the nearby Organic Gardening Experimental Farm as an outdoor classroom to get youngsters personally involved in compost-making and gardening.

"Contact the school district in your hometown... Explain how important it is, and how educational 0 for children to work with nature to produce something useful, and how a lifetime habit of gardening can begin now." The last count showed almost 500,000 leaflets were sent out to schools, teachers and individuals around the country. The schools mentioned above illustrate some ways the material was put to use.

And yet, the School Garden Campaign is just getting underway! In 1973 we know that there are going to be more gardens on school property and more students gardening both in school and at home than ever before!

Teaching students to garden is by no means a new idea. Back in 1914, the Children's Vegetable Garden of Brooklyn, NY, Botanic Garden was laid out. Frances M. Miner writes in Plants and Gardens that "over the years, children seem instinctively to prefer vegetables."

School Science Projects
10 years ago, my oldest daughter did a school science project showing how food scraps change to compost. Today, several Emmaus High School students have taken on the task of composting some of the school's cafeteria garbage. Right now, my youngest daughter is planning a project with earthworms and recycling.

Earthworm projects, composting as well as many soil experiments are fully described in 2 separate manuals authored by Albert and Vivian Schatz - Teaching Science with Garbage and Teaching Science with Soil.

The science projects with garbage and leaves and other organic wastes are great, but only a garden ties everything together - food becomes alive and meaningful when cared for from seed. The land ethic and environmental awareness are just so many words in a book or on a blackboard. But they have real meaning in a garden. "In our work, we encourage schools to develop on-lot gardens by the students similar to the program which is carried out in Cleveland," says Bruce N. Singer of Blue Bell, PA. "I am sure that your materials will be helpful to a number of schools."

Organic Living Courses

About 4 years ago, Charles Kuntzleman and John Haberern of Rodale's Fitness For Living magazine and Clay Myers, National YNCA Physical Fitness Director, developed the YMCA-Fitness Finders program.

Out of the original program has come an even more ambitious effort to teach and motivate people of all ages "into patterns of living which would help delay the onset of degenerative diseases." Editor Haberern calls it an Organic Living curriculum. This month, a special pilot program with these objectives goes into effect for the fifth and sixth grades of five San Diego City schools. In the "back to nature" unit, for example, students will get a thorough knowledge of organic gardening methods - from taking a soil profile to making a compost pile. They will learn how to find their way in the woods, attract birds to the backyard, tell a good bug from a pest, sprout seeds, read a food label - learning activities never offered in the traditional health and physical education program.

With the aid of a garden plan drawn up by OG editors and volunteer help from local organic gardeners, 14 Appalachia youth aged 12 to 16 began preparing and planting their gardens. Within a matter of weeks after the decision to go ahead with the project, over 100 tomato plants went into the ground, followed closely by the planting of squash, cucumbers, corn, beans, potatoes, peas, onions, flowers, herbs and even popcorn. "The kids sometimes took some of the vegetables home with them, or if the had enough to sell, they sold them at the stand in front of the Y." Davis pointed out.

Nutritious School lunches Naturally Follow School Gardens

Out in Bloomington IN, high school students have formed a Brown Baggers for Health to publicize the low nutritional value of standard school lunches. Students hope to have a fresh-food line set up that would feature fruits, some organically grown foods and home made breads.

Actually, a teacher has been introducing good nutritional concepts to her 9 and 10 year old students since her term began last September (1972), and she’s noticed a difference in the kind of lunches her students now bring.

This community effort by organic gardeners will be most constructive. From your own organic gardens, you have already gotten many municipal officials to learn about composting leaves, for example, instead of burning them. And now, from your own organic gardens, you can extend your impact to local educational quality just as you have to local environmental quality.