{"id":208,"date":"2017-08-01T13:54:28","date_gmt":"2017-08-01T18:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/sustainability\/?p=208"},"modified":"2017-08-01T13:54:28","modified_gmt":"2017-08-01T18:54:28","slug":"lakeland-school-garden-inaugural-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/sustainability\/2017\/08\/01\/lakeland-school-garden-inaugural-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakeland School Garden inaugural season"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year we were fortunate to have the opportunity to reach out to another community in Walworth County through the Campus Garden project.\u00a0 A partnership opportunity arose this summer to work with Lakeland School<\/a> in Elkhorn, WI when they expressed interest in establishing a school garden.\u00a0 The school is conveniently located next to the Walworth County Community Garden<\/a> and UW-Extension donated space to us to establish a garden space.<\/p>\n

Lakeland School is an important resource\u00a0 and integral part of the County\u2019s Special Education system for the independent School Districts\u00a0 within Walworth County.\u00a0 Lakeland is the operational and administration heart of a model cost-efficient Special Education Program the County administrators for its rural, smaller sized school districts in harmony and cooperation with those individual school districts.<\/p>\n

Starting a school garden is a challenge simply from the logistical needs of space, soil, plants, water, and other ingredients to a successful garden space.\u00a0 Additionally, a school garden needs to be an interactive space where the children it serves feel comfortable learning more about garden plants and the value of fresh produce for nutritional outcomes.\u00a0 The coordinator, or leader, of a school garden space not only needs to know how to keep the plants healthy and productive, but also needs to understand lesson planning and how to supervise educational activities through workshops and other experiential learning opportunities.<\/p>\n

To lead our collaborative efforts with Lakeland, Erica Otto was the obvious choice in the Sustainability Office to lead this as part of her 2017 Nutrition Education internship.\u00a0 Erica was our 2016 CHIP intern for the campus garden and has a background in community health education through her education at UW-Whitewater.\u00a0 Her skills and interest in gardening made her a great choice to lead her own garden space and her education gave her the knowledge needed to help teach Lakeland students about gardening and nutrition topics.\u00a0 Erica successfully engaged students from a wide range of ages and cognitive levels in her garden, which culminated in two final activities we will highlight here.<\/p>\n

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A Lakeland student explores the hollow stem of the perennial “walking” onion with Cher Woody, the 2017 CHIP intern for W3: Working for Whitewater’s Wellness.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Lakeland School students participated in a Garden Scavenger Hunt and Leaf Scavenger Hunt activity at the garden.\u00a0 Mrs. McBride\u2019s class was joined by special guests from Whitewater, including Wesley Enterline, Sustainability Coordinator at UW-Whitewater, Liesl Schultz-Hying, Garden Coordinator for W3, and Cher Woody, W3\u2019s 2017 CHIP intern, as well as Mr. Conrardy, Lakeland School\u2019s principal.\u00a0 Erica Otto led the group as part of her Nutrition Education internship.<\/p>\n

There were about 10 students in the class so each adult paired with a student and helped them go through the scavenger hunt questions.\u00a0 The children drew different colors they saw in the garden, traced their steps from the weeds to the hose, and even looked for bugs!\u00a0 After the Garden Scavenger Hunt, the children gathered together for a Leaf Scavenger Hunt activity.\u00a0 During this leaf activity, they got to taste and smell some edible plants while learning the difference between edible and non-edible plants.\u00a0 They explored different non-edible plants identifying them as waxy, fuzzy, and pointy.\u00a0 The session ended with the children lightly touching the sensitive plant and watching as the leaves curled up to protect itself.<\/p>\n

The children enjoyed the activities at the garden and learned a lot about what was growing.\u00a0 This activity was able to engage many students at different comprehensive levels and gave them the opportunity to get creative and ask questions about the parts of the garden they enjoyed the most.\u00a0 This was a great way to educate the students in a hands-on environment where they were free to get creative and messy.<\/p>\n

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Lakeland students enjoy making homemade pizzas with fresh ingredients!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Lakeland school students wrapped up their summer session today with a pizza party celebration.\u00a0 Larducci Pizzeria<\/a> donated supplies and we incorporated fresh vegetables from the Lakeland School Garden and the UW-Whitewater Campus Garden.\u00a0 There was thyme, basil, and oregano plants available for the children to pick the leaves and add to their pizzas.\u00a0 Some of them were surprised to learn that they could use the fresh-picked leaves instead of buying seasoning at the store.\u00a0 While they enjoyed assembling and eating the pizzas, their favorite part was rolling and tossing the dough up in the air to make their crusts. Each student got a chance to test out their skills and laugh together as they enjoyed their lunch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year we were fortunate to have the opportunity to reach out to another community in Walworth County through the Campus Garden project.\u00a0 A partnership opportunity arose this summer to work with Lakeland School in Elkhorn, WI when they expressed interest in establishing a school garden.\u00a0 The school is conveniently located next to the Walworth … Continue reading Lakeland School Garden inaugural season<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions\/213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}