Summer Celebration time at the garden! June 25

This has been a wonderful spring and the gorgeous Orchard Garden is teeming with life. Come and celebrate the arrival of summer with us at the garden on June 25 from 12-2pm. Light refreshments, snacks from the garden, activities, tours, music, and a time to meet the student gardeners and educators who run this incredible project!

Everyone is welcome.

This is our third annual summer solstice celebration at the garden, though it may be our last...

Travel to garden parties past on our blog...2011 & 2010.

Workshop Series #5: Sustaining the Schoolyard Garden

Last Saturday, the Workshop Series group looked at the practical issues about sustaining a schoolyard garden. We looked at questions like, "What should happen to the garden in the summertime when school is out?", "How best to work with the groundskeepers?", "How can we work with the Vancouver School Board?"

These are important questions for any teacher working to sustain a garden space. The group was privileged to be joined by an elementary school teacher Natasha, who has worked for 4 years to sustain her school garden in Vancouver, and Dolores from Evergreen, a charity whose mandate is to support new and continued use of green spaces on school grounds. These two women are an invaluable resource for the group.

As always, there was an outdoor component to the workshop, and Dolores led us outside to give us an example of an activity easy to do with kids - with or without a school yard garden. Another fun workshop day!

Participants were asked to look for living and non-living things in the natural space. 

Can you guess what these living and non-living things might be in this photo? 

Rain? A problem? Nah. Not for Dolores.
She passed around cardboard clipboards with plastic bags pulled over them. 

School gardening research events, Scarfe buliding Nov 13-30

From November 13 - 30, join Julia Ostertag in the Student Lounge of the Scarfe Building (Room #10, basement) to see and explore the themes of her PhD research project, Threads Sown, Grown & Given. On November 13 from 3-5pm, there will be a public opening of the indoor installation. Throughout November 13-30, you are invited to join Julia for daily threading conversations from 10-12, also in the student lounge. During these daily events, Julia will work with materials from the research, screen images from the summer garden installation, and invite the public (student teachers, undergraduate and graduate students, faculty members, instructors, staff and the general public) to join the research process.

If you are interested in participating in the research, please contact Julia for a consent form (julia_ostertag@yahoo.ca) and bring it to the student lounge on the day you plan to attend an event.

Vielen Dank, Lena Schrieb, for the incredible poster! (http://www.lena-schrieb.de)

IOP presentation

Yesterday Julia, Chessa and I had the honor of presenting this project at the IOP (Investigating Our Practices) Conference in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at UBC.  We each contributed to a shared power point covering the history of school gardens, the experiences/benefits/challenges of teaching in a garden, and the up-to-date details of this ongoing project.  Check out our 'Publications' tab to view this presentation.
Although it was a modest group, we received constructive feedback and inspiration, especially from Dr. Anne Phelan.  We look forward to sharing our ideas and engaging in future conversations such as these.

As for the garden...  hopefully yesterday's insane hail (in May!) didn't wash away all the lovely lettuce seeds...