Calypso - Schoolyard Garden Initiative

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The Schoolyard Garden Initiative

photo by David Shaw of Wild Imagination

What is the Schoolyard Garden Initiative?
The Schoolyard Garden Initiative was created in response to the need for hands-on educational opportunities in the schools, a garden connection for kids, and locally grown food for the community. The goal of the Schoolyard Garden Initiative is to create a network of school gardens functioning as experiential learning environments for teachers and students during the school year and as food production gardens - maintained by the teenagers involved in Calypso 's Employing Alaskan Teens in Gardening (EATinG) program - during the summer months.

Is your school interested in starting a schoolyard garden?
Please contact Calypso at 451-0691 for resources or for more information about participating in the Schoolyard Garden Initiative.

Calypso . . .
Curriculum and Gardening Consultants
To facilitate the use of school gardens, Calypso staff members act as consultants with the school Garden Committees regarding garden design, set-up, and integration of the garden into existing curricula. Recently, Calypso published The Living Classroom Manual, a comprehensive, standards-based guide to using Fairbanks area gardens to teach mathematics, science, and English/language arts in kindergarten through sixth grade. If you are interested in obtaining a copy of The Living Classroom Manual, please contact Calypso by phone at 451-0691 or by e-mail.

What is a Garden Committee?
A Garden Committee at each school oversees fundraising, planning, and building for the school garden. The Garden Committee includes parents, teachers, students, administrators, and community members! Calypso has a draft Garden Committee Manual to aid schools in garden creation. This manual includes an estimated garden creation budget, fundraising ideas, a guide to meeting logistics, Garden Committee responsibilities, garden planning considerations, and much more. Please contact Calypso by phone at 451-0691 or by e-mail for more information about Garden Committees or to receive a copy of the draft Garden Committee Manual!

Fairbanks schools are growing!
The History of the Schoolyard Garden Initiative and the EATinG program

2003:
EATinG students build a garden at Howard Luke Academy in Fairbanks.

2004:
EATinG students raise food for nine Fairbanks families at the Howard Luke Academy garden.

2005:
EATinG students raise food for 18 Fairbanks families at the Howard Luke Academy garden.
University Park Elementary builds garden boxes. The 530 U-Park students fill the boxes with soil, one bucketful at a time!

2006:
EATinG students raise food for 20 Fairbanks families at the Effie Kokrine Charter School garden (on the Howard Luke campus). University Park Elementary builds a moose fence, raises a greenhouse, and plants more than 50 varieties of vegetables, herbs, and flowers in the school garden.
The University Park garden includes spacious garden boxes, a meeting space for classes, natural dye plants, edible flowers, a greenhouse, and a taste-test wheel full of delicious vegetables and herbs. Calypso staff and volunteers teach a garden-based math lesson to every U-Park student!
Pearl Creek Elementary rips out sod and builds garden beds in fun shapes, like spirals!

2007:
EATinG students raise food for 15 Fairbanks families at the Effie Kokrine Charter School garden on the Howard Luke Academy campus.
The University Park garden grew many varieties of vegetables and flowers. Garden-based math lessons were taught to U-Park students.
Pearl Creek garden was planted for the first time with pumpkins, potatoes, sunflowers and marigolds. Calypso staff and school teachers teach garden-based lessons in the garden.
Hunter Elementary installs a moose fence and receives a delivery of soil.
Woodriver Elementary garden site has been approved and the Garden Committee is actively planning the garden.

2008:
Effie Kokrine Charter School and the U-Park Elementary School gardens are flourishing.
Pearl Creek student gardeners ran a CSA for 10 families this year.
Hunter Elementary spreads their soil, signs were painted and installed, and the Garden Committee is gearing up for next year.
At Woodriver Elementary flowers, potatoes and a cover crop were planted.
Randy Smith Middle School, West Valley High School and the new Watershed School are in the early stages of developing and planning their school gardens.

The Future:
Any and every school can garden!