School Gardens Project
The SPEC School Gardens Project, now in its third year, has engaged school children, teachers, parents, administrators and the community at large in meaningful urban agriculture experiences.
With funding support from the Vancouver Foundation this pilot project has allowed us to work closely with our local schools, helping to establish organic food gardens and integrate food education into the school curriculum.
Project Overview
Assisting with organic school food gardens is decidedly one of the most enjoyable ways to engage in environmentalism. It's also a way of making a big impact on our communities and future leaders.
At SPEC we are very excited about this project because not only are
we helping to teach school children about food security and the beauty of growing and harvesting their own organic fruits and veggies, but we are also helping keen teachers incorporate fun and thought provoking agriculture topics into their curriculum. Discussing food issues has proven to be a powerful way to engage children in various science, social studies, math, and health and nutrition topics already written into the BC curriculum.
Perhaps most importantly, this project strengthens students' connections to the environment and can make their school experience both meaningful and memorable
In 2010 we now have two staff working on the School Gardens Project in a total of Vancouver 6 schools.
Read the Vancouver School Board news article "Creating a Buzz about School Gardens".
View our School Gardens video on our YouTube page 
This project is primarily funded by SPEC members and donors. Please consider supporting this project by making a donation.
School Gardens Project Contact:
Marnie Newell
mnewell@spec.bc.ca
604 736 7732
Resources and Links
Looking to start an organic school food garden or new ideas for your existing project?
Tales From The Garden...
Visit to SPEC and City Farmer
Grade 1/2 Classes Come to SPEC for Rooftop Garden Planting
School groups can learn about urban agriculture by visiting the SPEC Sustainability Demonstration Center. The slideshows below feature students from nearby elementary schools who helped plant the SPEC Rooftop Container Garden and visited City Farmer to learn about soil and worms.
Starting a Wormery
Grade 1/2 Classes Start a Wormery and a Worm Bin
On May 5th 2 classes of grade one and two students from Bayview Elementary School got a visit from Catriona Gordon to learn all about worms and composting. They made a wormery, with layers of different soil and sand and observed the important job worms do, in mixing soil, and aerating it with their tunnels. Each student got a worm to observe and learned about how they move with their bristles (setae). You could hear a pin drop when all the students put their ears to their worms to listen for the bristles scratching along their desks! They learned that worms are hermaphrodites and how to tell which end is the head and which is the tail.
The students also made a classroom worm bin, with shredded newspaper and recess and lunch scraps that they had been saving dutifully for a week. They introduced a large handful of red wigglers to the bin, spritzed it carefully with water, and then waited…. After much patient waiting, they now have beautiful dark brown worm castings to add to their school vegetable garden… and they now save their lunch scraps for the pet worms.
Testimonials & Thank-You Letters
2060-B Pine Street Vancouver BC V6J 4P8 | tel: 604-736-7732 | www.spec.bc.ca | admin@spec.bc.ca
