For the past five years, the Mission PTA Garden Committee has been working towards providing Mission Avenue Open School with a true school garden and learning area where the entire school community can benefit. The Mission Avenue School Garden will allow students in all grade levels to have access to hands-on lessons to make learning more meaningful, applicable, and enriching. Students will be able to develop a deeper understanding of gardening, biomes, ecosystems and more as they build their knowledge from year to year. It will allow teachers to plan cross grade level and long-range STEM lessons for students. It will provide school-wide opportunities for service learning projects during the planting and harvest time. The school garden will also be able to provide teachers, staff, students, and parents a place to gather, work together, and enjoy as part of the greater school community.
We had just started construction on our garden in late 2019/early 2020 when we were forced to stop due to the covid-19 pandemic.
We are delighted to now be back on campus finally bringing this project to life!
Progress Report
We finally broke ground on January 30, and over the first two weeks more than 30 volunteers have come together and provided over 200 hours to lay the irrigation pipes, build a sitting wall, and assemble (most of) the garden beds! But there’s still a lot of work to do, before we can get to planting. We would love some help! This is what we have planned over the next few weeks!
- 2/12: Fill the beds with soil
- 2/19: Lay ground cover/bark and place stump seating circles
- 3/5 (tentative): Family garden planting day
If you are able to lend a hand on any of these days, please signup here!
Kids are welcome, and even if the aren’t able to help, they are welcome to play on the playground while we work. Note, however, that we will NOT have access to the bathrooms, so plan accordingly.
Garden Philosophy
Why a garden?
- We believe that having an all school garden is in line with Mission’s experiential learning philosophy as well as the goal of educating the whole child.
- Having an opportunity to garden connects students with nature and our place in the ecosystem
- Allows for connections in science, math, English, history, arts, physical exertion, nutrition, home economics, and play.
- Having a garden large enough to accommodate the entire school means this type of learning doesn’t stop after 2nd grade. Upper grade students can learn more in depth concepts and practices by having the garden available over a span of several years.
- It allows us to incorporate the buddy system into garden lessons and activities (examples: grow pumpkins for seed counting, stone soup activity, 3 sisters planting).
- It allows us to broaden parent participation (in the garden) to the whole school & creates a forum for families to get to know each other beyond their children’s grade level, thus strengthening the fabric of the community.
- Gives families a new way to participate in a broad spectrum of tasks.
- Will/could eventually provide fundraising opportunities and expose kids to basic economics.
- Can help as a common ground among different socioeconomic groups, language barriers, and other factors that can be difficult to connect with.
- Provides an opportunity for students to make connections in different subjects/topics in learning by applying various disciplines in a central theme (which has long been a mission tradition).
