Ready, Set, Grow
Creating a no-dig permaculture garden at St Thomas More
St. Thomas More School
Ben Lexcen Drive
Sunshine Beach Qld 4567
17th July 2006 Re: Creating a no-dig permaculture garden at STM
"Ready, Set, Grow!"
Our Support Teacher Inclusive Educatioh (S.T.I.E), Alanna Curtis, secured a grant to enable St Thomas More School to create a school garden.
The initial purpose of the garden was to provide a 'hands-on' activities base for two of our special needs students in the upper school. This would allow the students to gain real life experience about nature and gardening, as well as healthy food practices.
The STM Garen became so much more than that.
The Year 5 teachers were approached by Alanna as a astudent workforce was required to take ownership of the garden and assist the special needs students. A permaculture specialist, Leonie Shanahan, was brought in to show us how to create and maintain a 'no dig' garden. After a year level vote, we titled the teaching/learning unit, 'Ready, Set, Grow!"
Leonie talked to the Year 5 classes about the requirements of a fruit and vegetable garden and we sourced the school looking for a suitable space that had the right amount of shade and sun to ensure water wise practices, enough room for a natural garden design, access to water, and protection from the elements and stray soccer balls!
After a suitable sight was chosen, the Year 5 classes spent a couple of weeks designing the garden to include natural shapes, worm bath, a compost heap, areas for wheelbarrow access, tool storage, and a herb spiral including a worm tower. This process in itself was a valuable learning experience for the students and they were all very excited about creating the garden.
Leonie then explained the process of 'no-dig' gardening and the benefits of keeping the garden water wise and chemical-free. We were given a huge list of things for students to bring in to school and were surprised by the amount of donations we received. We had piles of newspapers, mesh, pipes, tools, gloves, fertiliser, bricks, rocks, gravel and even 2 baths donated. All of this was delivered to the school by helpful parents and excited students.
Set-up Day finally arrived, with even more donations being brought in all day. We used the money from the grant to purchase any supplies that were not donated. The students spend one whole overcast and drizzly day shovelling, sprinkling, wheelbarrowing, generally becoming extremely dirty and loving every minute of it. We had 90 ten-year-old studnets working outside all day and we did not have to speak to one child about behaviour. A miracle in itself.
We had a school holiday break and when we returned, the garden was ready for planting. Leonie took small groups of students out for planting, teaching them about the types of plants, growth requirements and propagation techniques.
Meanwhile, in class, students were keeping a detailed record of the progress of the garden in their Garden Journal. This gave us a chance to teach the students the Journal Writing Genre. We used this genre as a base to teach a range of spelling and punctuation conventions and specific self-editing skills. The students enjoyed the journal writing as it put their English lessons into a real-life context. Art techniques were incorporated to decorate the journals. Through the journal we also taught the Procedural Genre. Records of observations, plant growth and a calendar of predicted harvest dates were all included in the journal.
In our Informaiton Technology lessons, the students created a brochure using an "apple works" template detailing the procedure for "Creating a No-Dig Garden In Your School".
In Maths, we completed a "Space" unit on Mapping, including compass work and grid co-ordinates. Students spent more time in the garden completing a scale correct map of the garden.
We shared our garden with our Year One Buddies who were particularly interested in the worms in our worm bath and worm tower, as they were learning about insects at the time. Our two special needs students were always welcome to our gardening sessions.
Over several weeks, we video taped our trips to the garden and created a small movie for the parents to view. Photos of the gardeing were taken and included in the journals to stimulate the students in their writing tasks.
Towards the end of Term Two, we celebrated the success of our garden with a "Harvest Day". All parents were invited to join in as we; harvested our abundant produce, watched the movie of our garden, viewed the Garden Journals and Brochures and ate, ate, ate! The food was delicious and, of course, fresh. This was prepared by the year 5 students, parents, and a visiting chef. Some parents taught us some weaving techniques with banana leaves and Leonie had invited belly dances and a didgeridoo player to entertain us all. The children loved it.
The entire unit, and Harvest Day, was a fantastic, worthwhile learning experience fo the students. during formal assessment at the end of the term we were able to judge just how much knowledge the students had gained from the unit (although we already had a pretty good idea!), and the enjoyment they had in the garden is immeasurable. The Garden Journals have been completely self-edited, and the improvement in their writing is very evident. Some students who find maths quite challenging, excelled in the area of mapping due to the hands-on approach.
We are obviously continuing with the gardening this term, and the students remin as keen as ever. I have had many questions regarding who will look after the garden next year as the students enter year 6, as they do not want it to end. Students are still bringing in their fruit and vieggie scraps daily for the compost and are discussing new recipes involving bok choi and pesto!
I would thoroughly recommend any school to create a school garden, and use it to teach students knowledge and skills that will surely remain with them throughout their lives.
Yours sincerely,
Libby Ford
Year 5 Teacher
St Thomas More School