My students need 7 Elevated Raised Self-Watering Gardening Beds to participate in the GreenKids Salad Science program.
$1,410 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
"What spinach is, teacher?" asks one of my English language learning students.
"I know!" says another. "It's salad you buyed at the store."
"But where does spinach come from?" I question.
They look at each other, then at me, and finally shrug their shoulders.
Our school is a Title I elementary school with 50% of the population enrolled in ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) and 85% of students receiving free and reduced price meals.
My students are all English language learners in first grade. Of the 110 students in our seven first grade classes, over half are English language learners. While most of our students' families come from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, we also have 1st grade students from India, Philippines, Brazil, Kenya, West Africa, Ethiopia, Sierra Leon, Bolivia, Spain, China, and Vietnam.
To help our ESOL students make meaningful connections to the curriculum, we need to provide essential background and vocabulary in areas such as science and social studies. All of our students are most engaged by hands-on experiences and inquiry-based learning because they have control over their own learning. Our students are little sponges who like to get their hands dirty to fill their brains!
My Project
With full funding of our project, each of the first grade classrooms will have their own raised garden bed table in our courtyard garden with which to participate in the GreenKids Salad Science program. Over a six-week period in the spring, students will grow their own salad greens from seeds, learn about parts of plants and their nutritional value, collect data on plant growth, and harvest the salad greens for a delicious salad party. The Salad Science program reinforces many STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) indicators in the first grade curriculum such as developing awareness of the needs of living things, describing observable properties of objects, and measuring objects to compare attributes. Students also learn about personal responsibility as they provide for the basic needs of their growing plants and monitor the project on a daily basis. The harvesting salad party will be held at the end of May with support by Whole Foods.
Our school has a beautiful courtyard space with gardens and an amphitheater, but currently, this space is being neglected and underutilized.
With funding for the Salad Science tables, our students will be able to take advantage of the outdoor classroom awaiting them outside their own classroom windows. Not only will our present first grade students benefit from this meaningful hands-on experience, but all future first grade classes will participate in this program as well.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Novo and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
