SPEC School Gardens Program

Hello! My name is Erin. I joined SPEC this past summer to assist with their School Gardens Program. Having worked on an organic farm, I was excited for the opportunity to continue learning about growing vegetables. Each week I spent my days between six gardens, getting to know some new neighborhoods in Vancouver. My job was to weed, water, sow some seeds and harvest from the gardens; to ensure they are in good shape when students return in September and the gardens once again become important places of food-related learning.  This summer I learned to appreciate some new aspects of gardening. Starting my internship in June, I participated in several end of year harvest parties with students and teachers. Despite it being the last week of school, I was inspired by the commitment of teachers and I loved seeing the excitement of students entering the gardens, eager to find the vegetables they had planted.   The energy of June contrasted with the quiet days of July and...

At the Farm to School BC Spring Celebration, one of the schools SPEC works with, John Norquay Elementary, was awarded the highest award for a school garden. The Farm to School BC Pollinator Award recognizes Farm to School programs and school teams that act as pollinators within their community: buzzing around their gardens, kitchens and classrooms to build healthy food systems, transferring and sharing knowledge, fostering thriving learning environments, and supporting the development of young healthy “seeds”, who will grow up to one day offer the fruits of their labour back to the environment and community. 1 This esteemed award went specifically to John Norquay’s school garden committee, which includes Valeria Kao (parent volunteer), Linda De Jardin (grade 6/7 teacher), and Ivy Chang (K/1 teacher) as well as the involvement of many others at the school, such as Gary Loong (grade 5/6 teacher), the school librarian/resident garden carpenter, Mark  Warkentin , a very supportiv...

May 3rd What a beautiful, sunny day to be outside! Today, students transplanted their leafy greens into the garden boxes. We were very impressed with how well the boc choy grew. Unfortunately, the lettuce seeds struggled to grow, but that happens sometimes. The grade four class spent the hour adding compost to their garden box and planting new lettuce seeds. Check out the photos! 

 Thanks to our many generous funders, we were able to deliver over 260 garden and environmental education workshops at 10 schools across Vancouver during the 2016 to 2017 school year.  Here are what some students at Thunderbird Elementary, Grenfell Elementary, and Brock Elementary Schools had to say about their experience in their school garden.

Thanks to the very generous Telus Community Grant we receive this year, we were able to fund the replacement of two old boxes at Brock Elementary School that were breaking down.  This process would have been impossible without the expertise and help of Mr. Russ Evans from Tupper Secondary School, as well as the hard working students and parents of Ms. Bishop's class.  Thank you all who made this possible!!!!

For more details, click to go the SPEC website. Fall 2016: As the winter nears, and the rains pick up, students at our 10 schools have been busy getting the gardens ready for winter. The students cover each garden box with leaves to protect the soil from the cold and rain, to feed the worms, and to add fertility back into the garden so that we can have rich soil waiting for us in the Spring. TIP: Instead of putting your leaves in your green bin, you can use the leaves to mulch your garden over the winter, which protects the soil and adds nutrients back into the ground.

At Henry Hudson Elementary School, SPEC helped install four new garden boxes, to be filled with native plants that attract and provide food for bees and other pollinators.  Bee populations are on a decline, and as they are an important part of the human food supply, school gardens can play a role in helping them out in the urban environment. SPEC would like to thank TD Friends of the Environment Foundation for providing funding for this project, and Home Depot for helping us with obtaining the necessary supplies.

One of our school gardens, at Brock Elementary School, had experienced much abuse over the years, and finally broke. One very awesome class decided to do something about it.  With SPEC's help sourcing repurposed (recycled) paints, brushes, and paint trays, they made some great signs to let everyone know what the garden meant to them.  This garden is now more colourful than ever before!  A very special thank you to Gaia Green Products Ltd. and West Coast Seeds for donating so much organic fertilizer and seeds to us over the years!!

By Amy Ing On March 2nd, I had the pleasure to present a hunger workshop to Ms. Taylor's 24 students, Grade 1 class. The purpose of this workshop was to engage students in learning about how hunger varies across the world, and ways as a class we can do to help solve world hunger. First, students were asked to describe what is hunger. Common responses were, 'when people do not have enough food and lack money to buy food' and 'when people do not eat in a day.' A student even described how hunger impacts the acidity in our stomach and how people may get sick from being hungry. Students also shared stories about their encounters with helping people suffering from hunger by donating food or giving them money. Next, students were split into four different groups representing four countries: Indonesia, Mexico, Canada and Morocco. Each student in the group had to locate where their representative country was located on the map. I was amazed how easy these students f...