Super Eco

Photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography, flickr

Will allowing kids to literally sink their hands into learning in school gardens turn them into illiterate farmhands? According to Caitlin Flanagan in a new article at The Atlantic, it most certainly will. In building her shaky conclusion, Flanagan worships at the pedestal of book learning while conveniently overlooking the fact that there is nothing studied inside a school—math, biology, chemistry, literature, logic, art and more—that cannot also be learned while gardening. Add to that the benefits of teamwork, sustainability and responsibility reaped by young gardeners, and Flanagan is treading on loose soil indeed.

To understand more about what school gardens offer students, Super Eco visited with Jeanne McCarty, executive director of REAL School Gardens, a nonprofit organization that helps elementary schools create learning gardens. "School gardens are about much more than the activity of gardening, and the concepts students are learning go far beyond planting and cooking," McCarty told us. "Rather than substitutions for 'book learning,' as Flanagan implies, school gardens are living classrooms that reinforce, extend and bring to life what children are learning indoors. A school garden is a three-dimensional textbook that a child can physically enter, a vibrant and alive setting where he or she can observe, explore, test and practice math, science and other subjects."

Students with access to a school garden learn through experience. "Educators are able to teach children about concepts such as sedimentation, the nitrogen cycle, weather patterns and metamorphosis by observing these processes as they occur, in addition to reading about them," McCarty explains. "Last year, students at Fitzgerald Elementary School in Arlington, Texas, voted and chose science as their favorite subject because of their school’s dynamic garden."

Research shows that parental involvement goes up in schools with gardens, which McCarty notes is also frequently linked to student achievement.

In the end, school gardens are instrumental in helping students become well-rounded, engaged citizens. "While traditional academic learning is critically important, so is raising a generation of children who are happy, healthy and engaged in the world around them," McCarty says. "There is a wealth of research that indicates the positive impact of school gardens on children’s health and well-being, social and life skills development, civic responsibility and academic achievement—all essential ingredients for strong, competent, well-adjusted individuals."

REAL School Gardens currently supports 66 elementary schools in five urban school districts in North Texas by providing expertise in garden design and care, training teachers to use the garden for teaching and learning, and hosting events that bring people together throughout the region.