about Evanston school gardens

SAGE: Schools Are Gardening in Evanston

The SAGE Mission: to promote a healthy future for our children by supporting edible, sustainable school gardens.

The SAGE Vision: thriving edible, sustainable school gardens as learning communities which create an awareness of the importance and pleasure of growing and eating fresh, local food. SAGE strives to empower healthy food choices for the children of today and future generations.

The Evanston/Skokie District 65 Garden Project and the genesis
of SAGE

The Garden Project Guide was developed by teachers Megan Gifford, Sue Rosenbacher and Gail Wilcinski in 2006. A copy was placed with each school in the district.

The contents are intended to help initiate and sustain an organic edible garden program and include lesson plans appropriate for grades K-5. It builds on the success of the garden at Dawes School, described within the guide and below. A strong influence was the book on nutrition education by Antonia Demas, Food is Elementary.

from the introduction

The epidemic of overweight, undernourished and sedentary youth is a serious problem in our country that school districts need to address. An organic edible garden provides an opportunity for children to learn what conditions are essential to growing good food, what distinguishes good food from junk food, and to experience the taste of fresh and nutritious foods. As the district works toward putting the Wellness Policy into practice, this garden project offers an excellent opportunity to provide nutrition education to our students.

The Dawes School Edible Garden Project (2004)

In the spring of 2004 the Dawes School Edible Garden Project was launched. Six raised beds were constructed adjacent to the school prairie garden for an organic edible garden. As students planted, cared for, harvested and tasted what they had grown, we realized that we had created the best nutrition program a school can have. Now, with plans to expand our garden, our intention is to broaden and deepen students' experiences and understandings of what constitutes good food and make gardening an integral part of our school community and the curriculum.

What is the mission of the Dawes School Garden?

The mission is to create and sustain a model organic school garden and landscape that is wholly integrated into the school's curriculum. It involves the students in all aspects of farming the garden - planting, watering, harvesting, cleaning, preparing and eating the food.

What does the edible garden mean to our school?

We knew when students pulled the radishes and carrots out of the ground that first spring that we had planted more than seeds. The joy of finding food springing forth from the soil never fails to elicit wonder and excitement especially with children, and sampling the food grown in the school garden is at the heart of our garden program. We gather everyone around the table after the food is cleaned and enjoy describing the colors, smelling it, talking about how it was prepared and, finally, we taste it. Taste education, a concept we borrowed from Slow Food International, provides a unique way to cultivate the senses and teach students about sustainable approaches to growing food. It is also an opportunity to celebrate and appreciate fresh and nutritious food and our cultural diversity and culinary heritage - Bok Choi from Asia, greens and our Southern heritage, and bruschetta from Italy, for examples.

As one girl said after trying a pesto made from our garden basil, "I learned that if you keep an open brain you can learn to like foods that you might never have tried" Similar responses have us amazed at how our garden is transforming students' attitudes about trying new foods when they have grown them. Students are quick to respond to the freshness of foods as well. "It's like picking corn from the farmer's field. That's why it tastes better," commented one boy. Yes. Fresh, local and seasonal food is really good and the children get it. One of our favorite stories is that of a mother who has not been involved in school activities. Hearing that the class had harvested collard greens, she came in, swept them up and said that she was taking them home to prepare. No one could cook collards as well as her, she said, and later after the class licked the pot clean, they had to agree.

As our school district continues to look at ways to close the achievement gap and to provide "consistent academic achievement" we see gardening as a powerful tool. Gardening engages the body and the minds and hearts of our students across the curriculum. It provides experiences that give more meaning to learning as students apply their skills and observe nature at work. It reinforces such values as responsibility, caring, teamwork, patience, tolerance and respect as the students work shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand in the garden. It encourages stewardship of the land, protecting the biodiversity for today's communities and future generations. As Alice Waters, who founded the Edible Schoolyard Project would say, "a real delicious revolution" is underway in the school gardens. One, we would add, that holds out much promise for our own health and that of our planet.

the genesis of SAGE (Schools are Gardening in Evanston)

Dawes School in 2008 began addressing the issue of sustainability for our edible school garden program. The long range plan at Dawes is to fund a garden coordinator and it was clear to the Dawes Garden Committee by that time that we needed much broader community support, particularly that of the District 65 administration, if we were to help grow a sustainable school garden movement. Over the last nine months a number of developments made the prospect of collaboration seem more feasible.

In August 2009, a former Dawes parent took on the role of web master and developed a school garden web site, Evanston School Gardens. At this site news and events around school gardens are posted, a message board is available for discussions, and photos and information is posted about edible school gardens. This web site has proved a superb vehicle for expanding and focusing the conversation between schools about their garden projects and programs.

In November of 2009, two important public meetings focused on collaborating around food issues. The first was hosted by the Evanston Food Policy Council where Fran Freeman and Lynn Hyndman, Co-Chairs of the Dawes Garden Committee proposed that a model used by the Chicago Public Schools for expanding and supporting school gardens be considered for building an umbrella organization in Evanston. Heartened by the attendance of more than 30 people, including District 65 Board Member Kim Weaver, more exploratory conversations were organized. Then, in November, the Evanston Food Policy Council organized a meeting entitled Home Grown Evanston which was led by the Wisdom Exchange. Participants including Keep Evanston Beautiful, Inc., came together in what is called a Global Cafe, and sat down to share different perspectives and ideas on growing the local food economy in the community.

In early January, the Wisdom Exchange, on the request of the Dawes Garden Committee Co-Chairs, met with us and representatives of the Evanston Food Policy Council to advise on the next steps needed in building partnerships. By this time a Dawes parent had come up with a name for our prospective group: SAGE.

SAGE had its first formal organizational meeting on January 11, 2010 at Dawes School. Representatives from the District 65 PTA Council, KEB, The Talking Farm, the Evanston Community Foundation, and people from the wider community attended. We identified a number of topics people wished to address and began setting up conversation around them. Two days later Whole Foods approached Lynn Hyndman to explore the idea of a fund raiser for edible school gardens.

In yet another development the Dawes School Wellness Team made a presentation to the District 65 Wellness Council on our edible school garden program and cooking classes. It was well received and Mary Larson, District 65 Health Services Director, said she welcomes such input as the school district moves forward with plans to develop their new health curriculum. Dawes School is encouraged to know that our edible school garden program is helping put a new face on nutrition education.

Since early January SAGE has hosted two additional conversations, one on starting a school garden, the other on what to plant and when. Most recently, the EFPC, the Wisdom Exchange, the Dawes School Garden Committee, and Dawes PTA members past and present have met to focus on the goals and work of SAGE. An advisory board is in place at this time and many exciting challenges are now before us.

Dawes School is amazed at the speed in which broad community support for SAGE is growing. We see this momentum reflecting the urgent need to address the national health crisis in our country, in the growing awareness of how a local food economy can positively affect community health, well being and the environment, and on the efforts of Keep Evanston Beautiful, Inc. in helping spearhead support for start up school gardens over the last six years.