The Story of Our Learning Garden
In 2012, a Foothills parent, Hillary Dickman, began to make her dream of having a school garden at Foothills School become a reality. Her tireless efforts at volunteer recruitment and fundraising have resulted in an amazing Learning Garden for all students at Foothills! Our Learning Garden also contains a Community Garden section of twenty-two garden beds that are rented out each season. Our Community Gardeners help water and maintain our School Garden Beds, and their bed rental fees go toward financial support of the Learning Garden.
What Happens in the Garden?
The Foothills Learning Garden is a vital part of our STEM program. Many of our Science standards involve learning about living things and our Earth. What better place to learn than outside in our garden? There are three picnic tables for seating which transform the garden into an outdoor STEM lab! Our students plan their crops, plant the seeds, nurture and watch them grow, then harvest and eat the organic vegetables and herbs they have grown. We also have several compost bins.
Special Events in the Garden:
Health Jam - annual school event surrounding topics on heath and wellness
Annual Sunflower sale
Annual Pumpkin sale
Paint in the Garden Night
Beginning of the school year ice cream social
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) classes
Used as an outdoor classroom
Food collected from the garden and donated to local food shelters
