Today, we were invited by Drew Landry to visit and work on the beautiful school garden he has started at North Surrey Secondary school. The garden was beautiful, composed of 33 garden beds with a variety of vegetables, fruit, and flowers growing as well as several benches and tables for people to sit. After a tour and some stories about the garden's origin, the team and I got to work, performing some maintenance work in the garden. Though it was a lot of work, we were proud of the work we put into improving the garden.
Susan and Evelyn working hard!
Hearing Drew talk about the garden was inspiring. He frequently referred to the space as a "classroom," as his hope for the space was to have teachers bring their classes outside to use the space as an alternative learning environment, similar to how teachers may bring their classes to a computer lab. While we were working, a Humanities class came to the space to take part in an outdoor poetry slam. I love this idea of using the space as an alternative learning environment! The space that Drew has created is large enough to seat an entire classroom comfortably around the many tables in the area. Even though the class was not using the plants directly, I have no doubt that the change in environment had an effect on the students' learning experience.
A flower boat!
This visit to the garden was invaluable. Not only did we get to see a secondary school garden in action, we were also made aware of the difficulties in starting and maintaining a school garden. Drew put years of ground work into creating this space, fighting for his vision of an outdoor classroom. His efforts have created spaces where valuable and meaningful learning can take place, not only in his school but also in schools across the district. I hope to continue the work that Drew has done in my own school one day.
No comments:
Post a Comment