"It was underutilized," said Kenya Fredie of Orca Elementary School's garden when she first started volunteering three years ago. But that is no longer the case, as Orca's award-winning garden is now a vital part of the school's curriculum.
After volunteering for a year, Fredie became the garden coordinator and has now been tending to it for about two years. With the help of parent volunteers, Fredie works to not only maintain the garden but also to create curriculum for the students that will utilize everything the garden has to offer.
Fredie says she puts together a curriculum that is based on the seasons. Currently, the students are working on "garden economics" to prepare them for their upcoming annual plant sale on May 13. Fredie says this fundraiser is a great way to bring the community together and to sell plants that the kids have put together and grown.
During the cold and flu season, Fredie says the students use the mint garden to harvest mint and phenol.
"They learn how to add herbs to their life," she said. "It's hands on, using smell and touch. The students learn so much by coming out and exploring."
Bugs, seeds, plant classification and identification, and photosynthesis are just some of the things the children can learn in the garden as opposed to going over these subjects sitting in a classroom. The students learn about plants through books and study sheets in the winter, Fredie said, and come spring they are able to do most of their studying in a hands-on way in the garden, she added.
A blacktop transformation
The garden was created in 1993 when Orca turned a patch of asphalt into an outdoor classroom. A greenhouse was added to the Orca garden - saving it from demolition - and it is now used to grow many of the plants for the school's annual plant sale. The garden has many features, with more being added continuously: a wildlife habitat area to attract birds, a butterfly garden, two solar panels, worm bins, an herb garden and much more. Being that the garden's amenities are so vast, Fredie says the facility is basically being used all day, by all grades.
Each classroom gets to have a plant bed where they can grow whatever the students agree upon. Fredie says this is a great learning experience for the kids because they have to plan out their bed, measure correctly, and decide exactly what seeds they will need.
"It fosters teamwork," Fredie says.
Besides taking care of their plant bed, the Orca Elementary third graders are currently working on a project called the "giving garden." With the help of one of Fredie's volunteers, the students are working to donate crops from a section of the garden to those in need. Broccoli, peas and lettuce are just some of the upcoming crops that will be donated to a local food bank.
The fourth and fifth graders are involved in Orca's annual Native Plant Project, which works to replenish the Duwamish River. The project provides the river with dogwoods, redwoods, thimbleberries, cottonwoods and more.
"They get to see the entire cycle and it's hands-on from start to finish," Fredie commented on the importance of the project.
Fredie is also currently gearing up for Orca's spring elective, a program designed for fourth-and fifth-graders that allows them to choose what they want to study. The elective classes are intermixed with the school's regular curriculum, allowing the students their chosen course three times a week for an hour. Some of the topics include knitting, Columbia City history and, of course, gardening.
Fredie has prepared her curriculum for the upcoming class and plans on starting off the session with repotting tomatoes. She said it will help the kids prepare for the plant sale and learn the names of a variety of tomatoes.
"It's kind of like a spelling bee," she said of the challenge to label all of the different tomatoes the garden produces.
Fredie also plans to teach the students about nutrition, focusing on whole and processed foods, and the technique of grafting or splicing.
But it is not always just hard work in the Orca garden. Fredie noted the garden can sometimes just be a place where the students can relax.
"There are days when you need to decompress," Fredie said. "I'll have them be my mini-botanists. They learn the names of plants and draw them."
High praise
And not all of Orca's hard work has gone unnoticed. The garden has won several awards, most recently the National Gardening Association's (NGA) Youth Garden Grant and the Ron Sims' Earth Heroes at School award, where Orca Elementary School will be honored with a ceremony in May.
The Youth Garden Grant was a major honor for Orca because only 150 schools were awarded prizes, out of the 1,300 applicants.
As a result of winning, the school received a $250 gift card to Home Depot and curriculum support, which consists of bi-monthly leaflets provided by the NGA on different subjects, such as harvesting lettuce or how to create a diverse garden.
Donna Booska, of the NGA, said that Orca's garden was chosen because it was such a "wonderful organization." Booska said that Orca Elementary has a tremendous amount of support for their garden and the children spend a quality amount of time in the garden every week, something that not every applicant was able to claim. She also stressed that the application Orca filled out was very well put together.
Booska asserted that the Youth Garden Grant applications are one of the most complex and detailed, requiring applicants to answer a variety of questions and submit maps and pictures of their garden.
"But when you have as much as they do to write about, it's not hard to fill out," Booska said of the application. "They have been sustaining [the garden] and improving it for awhile now. They pull it together in every possible way."
For more information on Orca Elementary School in Columbia City and their award-winning garden, please visit www.orcaatcolumbia.org.
Katie Kirschke may be reached via editor@sdistrictjournal.com.[[In-content Ad]]
