Author: Arden Bucklin-Sporer

Tour any number of SFUSD elementary schools these days, and chances are you will find yourself in a garden. Look around and you might also see a huge cistern collecting rainwater from a portable classroom roof. Students calculate its square footage, the annual rainfall and make predictions on how quickly the cistern will fill. When the rainy season is over, captured rain water will irrigate garden beds, which spill over with food crops and hardy native plantings. Hummingbirds dart around the red salvias planted by the third grade class. Nearby solar panels collect energy from the sun and power a solar pump which circulates water in the small pond. Fifth graders analyze the water for oxygen content and study pond life. Trees surrounding the yard provide shelter for birds and shade for students. Schoolyards, it turns out, are excellent places to teach about conservation, the food we eat, energy systems, community, and ecology –all the while satisfying state content standards. It is no wonder that SFUSD school communities, principals, teachers and students are rallying around green schoolyards in record numbers.

SFUSD is leading the nation in green schoolyards, thanks in large part to the Prop A school bonds which provide funding for design and construction of green schoolyards in more than half of our elementary schools. Leonard Flynn, Commodore Sloat, Sherman, Bryant, Alvarado, Hillcrest, SF Community and West Portal Elementary Schools have finished extensive greening projects, and many more school yard greening projects are in the pipeline.

School gardens, a fundamental component of schoolyard greening, function as outdoor classrooms, attracting teachers, students, and school community members. Food systems gardens are now in over 70 SFUSD schools and students are experiencing the profound pleasure of growing, tending, harvesting and eating the food they grow. Curriculum is directly linked to the outdoor classroom and provides a rich opportunity for learning in the real world. Peas formerly sprouted in classroom window sills are now planted in the school garden. These experiments are carefully measured, plotted, sketched, watered, tended- and the fruits of this labor are happily devoured. Students are thrilled to observe the lifecycle from seed to seed.

San Francisco’s cool climate is perfectly attuned to the school calendar which might account for the popularity of these gardening projects. We plant in late August when school convenes, harvest before Thanksgiving, allow some fallow time for winter rains, then replant in March for a late May harvest. We grow wonderful nutritious greens, lettuces, root crops, and cole crops such as broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. Students enthusiastically eat vegetables from a school garden, much to the surprise of their parents. The consensus among school garden practitioners is that students will eat what they grow.

 

Thanks to devoted parents and teachers, these gardens continue to thrive year after year. Garden and greening projects are as much about bringing school communities together around a shared goal, as they are about the resulting outdoor space. If you are wondering how to get involved with a school garden project, consider the following:

 

If you are a parent:

• Start a school garden committee at your school
• Work with the committee , teachers, and the principal to envision your school garden
• Find out if your school is a Prop A bond school
• Contact the San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance and get connected to the great community of school garden practitioners
• If your school has a garden, volunteer to work with a classroom teacher in the garden

 

If you are a community member:

• Get certified with the San Francisco Education Fund
• Contact the San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance for information on SFUSD school gardens
• Give generously to your neighborhood school garden

 

We look forward to seeing you in the garden!

 

Arden Bucklin-Sporer is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance. She is co- author of Timber Press’s “How to Grow A School Garden: A Complete Guide for Parents and Teachers” available in June, 2010.