Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Nicole Cefalu, 9, Carrie Glaser, 7, and Carolyn Newswanger, 7, soak up a bit of agriculture at the Reading Garden project at West Valley elementary school.
New roots of education sprout
New program at West Valley Elementary lets students get their hands dirty
By Kelly Wilkinson
Fourth-grader Emily Fitzpatrick gently spreads the roots of a store-bought violet pansy and plants it with compost and an adult-sized spade.
"You plant this one four inches into the ground, but you plant bulbs six inches in," she says.
Fitzpatrick and her classmates crouch in different patches of the school's shady garden, tending to the flowers and bushes with a delicacy and studiousness that extends beyond their years. Around the corner, sturdy planting boxes house the beginnings of peas, garlic, rutabagas, carrots and Brussels sprouts.
This is West Valley Elementary school's garden, where each class spends a Wednesday a month tending to the flowers, plants, and vegetables. In addition, the school wraps each class' natural science curriculum around an activity in the garden such as soil types, photosynthesis, insects and compost.
Lisa Glaser, one of the 75 parent volunteers involved in the garden, says the school garden builds on students' natural curiosities, and then translates into hands-on learning.
"This really brings it home for [the students]," Glaser says. "Some of them have no idea that orange juice comes from oranges, so this makes them a part of nature."
Glaser says the activities sprout an appreciation and respect for nature, as well as the realization that almost everything we eat comes from the ground. She points to an exercise with kindergartners in which they try to name a food that isn't dependent on natural processes.
The students eventually get around to naming soda, she says, which the teacher points out relies on sugar. Such exercises--which all grade levels use--reveal to students the practical applications and larger context of natural science.
Last year, the school ordered 500 ladybugs and released them in the vegetable garden, where the students watched them develop from larvae to bugs and then battle aphids on artichoke plants.
Susan Douglas, West Valley's principal, says the program's success is rooted in the students' natural inclinations.
"This is just natural," she says. "What kid didn't get out in the dirt or have a bug collection or collect flowers? And you never know when you will flip the switch for a student."
Glaser agrees.
"This is how you get scientists and doctors," she says. "It can start in the dirt. Observation and critical thinking is going on here and [students] can continue in that direction."
The garden project started seven years ago, but last year marked the first school year in which all grades were involved. Previously, only lower grades participated. And this year saw the transformation of the unused dirt lot into a garden hand-planted and maintained by students and parent volunteers.
The school district donated the benches that line the garden path, and the PTA picked up the tab for most of the supplies and teaching aids. With the completion, teachers can sign up to use the garden for reading and writing classes.
And the students have more of an opportunity to observe tangible effects of what they learn about in their textbooks.
"I like it because we get to learn what you do to take care of [plants] and how to make them grow," says Becca Gulart, another fourth-grader.
"They love digging in the dirt, feeling it, and smelling it," Glaser says. "It's more than just putting a plant in the ground."
Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
