MDES school community nurtures garden project

Teachers Naomi Means and Katrina Stortz planted the idea of a school garden at Mt. Diablo Elementary in the fall of 2014. After some setbacks, the stars aligned this spring and the garden sprang to life.

A committee of dedicated administrators, teachers, Parent Faculty Club members, parents and students raised $2,500 plus $8,500 of in-kind donations to bring the project to fruition. Volunteers assembled eight raised beds in a single day this spring. Girl Scout Troop 33199 pulled out dead rose bushes and spindly lantana in front of the school office, creating a blank slate for the native, drought-tolerant garden.

Local companies dumped donated mulch, wood chips and topsoil, which piled up on the playground and in front of the school. Native plants, seedlings and butterfly-friendly flowers lined the hallways.

On May 22, 120 volunteers gathered to complete the project. “Parents, grandparents and children lined the ground with layers of cardboard and then mulch to cover over 3,000 sq. ft. in a process called sheet mulching,” said Laney Cline-King, who chairs the garden committee for the Parent Faculty Club.

Parent Bill Blackwell donated and installed drip irrigation. Local landscape designer Kelly Marshall planned the garden and guided volunteers.

“Volunteers lined the front garden with ladybug and bumblebee stones painted by MDE students,” Cline-King said. “Children created butterfly stepping stones, painted plywood flowers and tasted vegetables from the Clayton farmers market before planting tomatoes, as well as green bean seedlings and pumpkins.”

The mission of the MDE garden is to enrich learning with hands-on, project-based math and science lessons, as well as nutrition education. “But it is also to build community and work together, values that are at the heart of the city of Clayton,” Cline-King noted.

The raised beds are primarily for edibles, with one for each grade level – plus an extra bed being used for tomatoes that will be shared by everyone. “Until we can expand curriculum-based gardens, some of the teachers that focus heavily on butterflies in their curriculum wanted to plant butterfly flowers in their beds,” Cline-King said.

She said there is enormous support for the garden from teachers and students alike. “Over 10 classes were in the garden just last week. And two-thirds of the teachers want to do food tasting in their class and plan to consume the edibles.”

The school has asked the Clayton Business & Community Association for $10,000 for teacher training, curriculum and a part-time garden coordinator so that teachers can teach science in the garden.

“As teachers transition into teaching the Next Generation Science Standards, they will need to adjust their curriculum,” Cline-King said. “Using the garden as a teaching tool to teach NGSS is the goal.”

The project aims to provide food education with high impact, starting small with harvesting and classroom tastings – but ultimately serving the edibles in the cafeteria. A second goal is for the garden to be a living laboratory where children learn science and math through hands-on activity. “It is research-based, engaging and ultimately more fun for students and teachers,” Cline-King added.

Over the summer, garden committee members will do bi-weekly maintenance. And the Clayton Community School on campus will be integrating the garden into its summer curriculum. Pending district approval, the garden will be open for a lunch so community members can come in to harvest and socialize.

In the fall, the school will begin a master planning process to discuss greening the rest of the schoolyard and to obtain student, parent and community input on what to grow, how to use the edibles and how to move forward with the educational goals.