Are you a school or school district interested in establishing larger-scale school gardens? Schoolyard farms? Are you already hosting a BC mandated course and want to build a larger garden to support academic learning? Do you have a vision for what you want the garden to achieve, yet not sure how to operationalize it?
We support school communities in designing, establishing, and operating successful gardens that provide opportunities for inquiry-based and cross-curricular learning, volunteering, leadership development, job skills training and community building experience for students.
Learn more with Fresh Roots
We’re here to help you learn how to grow your own school farm or garden. To begin, take a peek at our case study (funded through the Real Estate Foundation of BC), detailing how we’ve grown our educational farms and programs, and why we’ve done that in the context of our partnerships. If you’re interested in working with Fresh Roots to grow your own educational farms, be in touch for our ‘educational farm design’ program.
Every school garden is different, ranging from a few small raised beds to larger scale schoolyard market gardens. Costs to establish and maintain gardens can range from $7,000 – $125,000. Frequently individual schools get excited, pool resources, and establish a school garden. A few years after construction, a key teacher might leave, or parents might depart after their student graduates, in both cases, leaving the garden without a champion and in disrepair. By default the facilities department is left to navigate the situation.
Gardens are long-term commitments, and as such, we encourage schools to think long-term when establishing a new garden, regardless of size and scope. This ensures long-term success as well as brings together all integral school board stakeholders.
To do this, we facilitate a Concept Design process. We convene key stakeholders within the school community and facilitate dreaming and visioning sessions. After analyzing all information gathered from these sessions, we develop a full school garden plan; including all physical and animation elements, including capital, ongoing maintenance costs, and next steps.
If you are interested in bringing us in to help facilitate the process and design of your new schoolyard garden, get in touch.
The body of work included in the pages of our Gladstone Learning Garden document is incredible and I am just so proud of the professional work that has taken place and so honoured to work with you.
I can not adequately express the gratitude that I feel for the passion, expertise, commitment, integrity, kindness, diplomacy, and fun you bring to our shared dreams of healthier, inclusive, and more fulfilling lives and spaces for our students.
Thank you for literally bringing this dream to life and for guiding us all to dream big and wide! I look at our design and I can imagine what it will be like to be present in our beautiful garden.Derek McQuillen
Work Experience Transition Facilitator
Career Programs/Learning Services
Vancouver School Board