Why Have a School Garden?

There are probably hundreds of reasons to have a school garden. To us, perhaps the most important reason is to help students understand where food comes from. With a school garden, students are able to watch and nurture a seed until it becomes an edible and delicious plant. This knowledge and understanding will serve students well in their choices about what they eat and how much they appreciate what they eat. A garden is also the best place to learn about ecosystems because a healthy garden is an ecosystem including plants, insects and soil. Gardens can incorporate concepts outside the realm of science and nutrition as well. They provide ample drama for writer’s workshops and can be the basis of many social studies discussions about food, culture and geography. These concepts can be applied from kindergarten to high school levels. Finally, a school garden offers a beautiful and constantly changing green space in the school yard for students to explore, examine, wonder and play. There is emerging evidence to show that children suffer from lack of exposure to green space, and that connecting them with the natural world in the context of directed learning or even play helps them concentrate in other arenas and gives them a sense of empowerment in their lives. For a thorough and inspiring book on this topic, take a look at Last Child in the Woods, written by Richard Louv, and links to webpages on this topic see our Links page.