The U & ME Schoolyard Garden
The mission of the U & ME Schoolyard Garden is to educate our children about making healthy food choices. Planning, planting, maintaining, harvesting, consuming, and preserving the food from an organic garden will provide experiential learning opportunities for our students and the school community.
The U & ME Schoolyard Garden is our "crown jewel" of the integration of classroom lessons with experiential application in the 2600 sq ft organic garden. Led by garden coordinator, Peggy Henden-Wilson, and assisted by her team of Mt Everett high school interns, students' grades Pre-K through grades 6 are learning to become observers, questioners, doers and problem solvers while learning required curriculum standards in the garden.
The U & ME Schoolyard Garden enables children to make food choices based on new tasting experiences as well as creating a better understanding and appreciation for where their food comes from. Our goal is to have an offering of organic garden grown fruits and vegetables as a snack option for our elementary student body.
The goal of the U & ME Schoolyard Garden is to lay the groundwork for making responsible environmental choices by teaching the children, through hands-on experiences, about interdependent plant and animal needs, about the complex natural cycles, and webs, and most importantly, about their roles as responsible caretakers.
For more information see: U & ME Schoolyard Garden
Garden Club
The Undermountain After School Garden Club is a year-long program for students in 1st through 6th grades. Children are engaged in horticultural and environmental activities after school on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. This multi-age group of students helps maintain the collection of plant material in the UME Greenhouse and the surrounding gardens at the SBRSD campus. The program is funded by the SBRSD, the Parent/Teacher Organization, donations from community members, and parents of the UME participants.
During the school year, students hold two fundraisers to help defray the cost of
materials for the program. The first one is a Holiday Marketplace where
students offer holiday wreaths that they have made, along with potted Amaryllis bulbs, and other interesting plants that have been grown in the UME Greenhouse.
The second fundraiser is a spring plant sale that is held in May. The students provide all types of annual flowers, vegetables, and perennials for sale from the UME Greenhouse.
The program, run by Peggy Henden-Wilson, is entering it's 9th year.
