FAIRFIELD, Conn. Something new poked through the ground at Burr Elementary School last week. Through the work of families and volunteers, the Burr Street school added a vegetable and flower garden to its campus. All 16 of Fairfields public schools now have neat rows of plants sitting on their grounds. And starting this fall they will all become new classrooms for the district.
"Gardens will allow us to move learning beyond the four walls of schools and into an outdoor classroom where students can make connections to their real lives, says Anna Cutaia-Leonard, Fairfields director of elementary education.
Fairfield has been adding gardens to its schools since 2004. But this fall, volunteers led my mom Annelise McCay spread the program to all public schools. Superintendent David Title believes the district is the first of its size in the country to pull off such a feat.
Fairfields teachers also worked on a new curriculum to include time in the garden in lesson plans across all age levels. Kindergarten students, for example, will start with the ABCs of Fruits and Vegetables. Their older siblings in first grade will head out to the same spots for a math lesson on shapes and measurements.
"Math is ever-present and strong in nature because of angles and symmetry, says Gary Rosato, the districts curriculum director. Finding math in gardens is not only exciting for youngsters, but it is one of the goals of our math program: to find math all around us."
Older elementary school kids will go out in the fields to learn about social studies. They will plant Three Sisters gardens?corn, beans and squash?to learn about Native Americans and their farming techniques.
Middle and high schools will work their school gardens into the new Consumer and Family Science curriculum. The kids will harvest their own vegetables and use them in recipes from the "All New Square Foot Gardening Cookbook." Recipes include whole-grain zucchini lime bread, roasted kale chips with sea salt, and watermelon cake with watermelon frosting, all made from scratch.
This last round of gardens was pushed along with a joint grant from the Fairfield County Community Foundation (FCCF) and the Fairfield Foundation for Education (FFE). Through the FFE, Fairfield also received extra money for many other projects, including a CSI (Crime Scene Investigation)-style class at the high school level. Title said the grants were a celebration of a valuable public-private partnership, especially in light of the challenging economic times and tight school district budget."
To reach Greg Canuel, email [email protected].
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