Blog http://flagstaffschoolgardens.wordpress.com/
A Partnership between Flagstaff Foodlink and the Flagstaff Unified School District.
This Action Research team adds fuel to the exploding school gardens movement in the Flagstaff Unified School District and across the country! The School Gardens ART is helping the rising generation toward better food security through urban gardening.
Students on this team work in groups of three or four at three different public elementary schools in the district. At their schools, they join the larger School Garden Sustainable Dreams Team. This Team includes Master Gardners, parents, teachers and, of course, students. The nature of their work depends on each school’s culture, visions and needs as well as on student initiative and vision. This is a very collaborative process, and there is a great deal of opportunity for students to actively participate in shaping the school’s food system.
Many schools are using a new interdisciplinary garden curriculum tied to state standards that engages students’ math, science, arts and language skills while teaching students the wonder of becoming native to place. That curriculum was commissioned by Flagstaff Foodlink and written locally, and so reflects the challenges of gardening sustainably in the high desert of the Colorado Plateau: learning how to use and conserve water, how to create compost to enrich our locally poor cinder soils, and so much more. There is much to learn and much to teach!
Flagstaff Foodlink has provided financial support and visionary inspiration for these school gardens. It is a community organization that aims to offer strong educational, organizational and fundraising tools to the exciting, emergent local food movement in the greater Flagstaff community. By creating sustainable agriculture curricula for Flagstaff schools and supporting school gardens, convening members of the Flagstaff food system on a regular basis, and channeling funding opportunities to food system innovators, Flagstaff Foodlink can catalyze profound change in the way we produce, consume and value local foods here in Flagstaff.
For more information on individual sites, click on the Killip and Kinsey Elementary School Garden ARTs in the scroll down menu.