By Shawnee Adelson, Youth Education Facilitator
Gardeners at Swansea Garden Club, Summer 2012The beauty of the garden club is its flexibility. Each DUG garden club is run at the community level, making each one unique. Some are after school, and some are only during the summer. Some meet once a week, some meet more often. They can focus on art, gardening, science, literature, cooking or multiple subjects. Garden clubs are supervised by teachers, parents, Connecting Generations mentors and/or community gardeners, but are really run by the students who participate. Though the details may vary, all garden clubs connect students to the garden in a fun, consistent, and nontraditional way.
The following showcases a few examples of different garden clubs throughout DUG’s network of school-based community gardens:
- Bradley Elementary’s garden club was started in 2011 by a group of volunteers including Connecting Generations mentors, Slow Food Denver, volunteers, community garden leaders and parents. The program is open to 4th and 5th grade students, and because of intentional fundraising efforts, there is no charge to students to participate. Each year the group of students grows as the club becomes more well known. Mentors, parents and teachers divide the students’ time between culinary, gardening, reading, journaling and science lessons and activities. Parents are asked to participate in at least one session of garden club or prepare a healthy snack to encourage their support and to help bring the ideas from garden club home. Over the summer, students and parents are invited to visit the garden on Saturday mornings when Connecting Generations mentors will be available to guide garden activities.
- Fifth graders at Swansea Elementary participate in our classroom and garden-based nutrition education program funded by INEP. During the spring students start seedlings in the classroom, so they can be planted outside once it warms up. It was a natural extension to start a summer garden club so the students could continue to care for the plants and benefit from the bounty. For the last two years, Swansea’s summer garden club has been coordinated and run by two Connecting Generations mentors. The kids meet once a week to do various standard gardening projects, but also do fun activities like art projects. The summer garden club has grown into an afterschool Youth Farmers’ Market, which has become hugely popular with the students as well as the parents.
- As one of the pioneers of the Youth Farmers’ Market program, Fairmont Elementary’s garden club has a long history. Over the years it has taken on various permutations, depending on who is running the program, and the interests of the students. Most recently the summer garden club was run by a parent, who had a more free-form model than other schools. Each day was dedicated to a different group of students. For example, every Saturday morning was for parents to bring their kids in grades pre-K through 3rd. This spring, a new parent and teacher group will be coordinating the garden club, with the intention of starting seedlings indoors and preparing and planting the garden beds before school is out for summer.
- Valdez Elementary began its first garden club in 2012, and it was so successful that the leaders plan to continue this year. Their activities ranged from scavenger hunts to encourage plant and insect identification skills, to taste education for fruits and vegetables, and mapping the garden plots, which was directly related to one teacher’s classroom lessons. They largely used Denver Urban Gardens’ garden and nutrition curriculum, which leaders found to be user-friendly and relevant to classroom lessons. This year they plan to hold their first Youth Farmers’ Market, which will be run by the garden club students beginning this fall.
- Ellis Elementary began their first garden club at the beginning of this school year. A teacher and Connecting Generations mentor team have met with K-2 grade students each week throughout the entire school year. They used the winter months for making mural art, building a worm bin, learning new vocabulary and learning about nutrition through healthy snacks and MyPlate activities. With the growing season around the corner, they started seedlings indoors and each week hope for good weather to get outside to build a compost pile and prepare the soil.
If you are interested in starting a garden club, our resource, Troubleshooting a Summer Garden Program can help answer many questions educators face. For further assistance, DUG’s upcoming Helping Kids Get Healthy Educator Workshop on May 19th will focus on planning and implementing Summer Garden Clubs.
We love to hear your stories! If you would like your garden-based school program to be featured in a future Underground News, please contact us!