The Blossoming Health
and Academic Benefits of
School Gardens
teach your children well
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
It’s that time of the year again when commercials abound with messages of giving, family and children’s values. I love it, in a sense they all reflect just some of the many principles we practice all year. Often you hear us at Lincoln Landscaping Inc of Franklin Lakes talking about and/or promoting “giving back, sustainability, organic gardening, and learning and teaching children”. It’s one of the principles we operate our firm by.
And having completed and maintained my Accredited Organic Land Care Professional Certification and Program, one of the unique capabilities of this certification is the ability to discuss the benefits of healthy turf and landscape transition with homeowners, municipal and private sector grounds staff, schools and educational institutions as it relates to our children’s learning, growth, safety and cultural awareness.
One such example of this is when we partnered with Bogota School board of Education and principal Damon Englese to update the outside grounds of the school located at 25 Fischer Ave. in Bogota. As the planting matured we volunteered our time and talked with every class in the school. Teaching the children about the project, the compost we used to promote good soil biology and strong tough plants. We discussed the varieties of the plants, their Latin names, their vivid bright colors, and even got them comfortable with the bees, gently pollinating the colorful flowers. They soaked up the information like a sponge and in doing so took ownership of the garden. They pledged to respect and care for it. It was a delightful fall day and all had a wonderful experience learning about environmental stewardship.
Recently I came across this special CNN report:
“The blossoming health and academic benefits of school gardens”
wherein they detail some of the benefits of a school garden.
When they are in the garden, “children who normally would not speak or raise their hand are now engaging in a lesson without being prompted,” Hernandez said. And the effects seem to last after they leave the garden. The students are scoring better on standardized tests and are just more excited in general about school.
Carina Storrs, Special Reporter CNNThe article goes on to say the program has also found that about twice as many teachers report being satisfied with their job after their school cultivates its garden. We expected that students would be more engaged, but as a result it was re-engaging teachers with the profession of teaching. It was exciting and surprising and valuable.
If you are an organization of school contemplating a school garden in the coming year, give us a call and we’d be most happy to discuss such an endeavor with you and your committee. The Benefits of Gardening with Children are “priceless”..
At Lincoln Landscaping cultivating the environment is our life and livelihood. It is our number one goal to help our clients create and maintain beautiful landscapes while reducing the impact on the environment. Whether you are interested in a pollinator landscape garden design and build or other landscaping or property management project; we can create for you an environmentally friendly, organic and beautiful property.
Lincoln Landscaping of Franklin Lakes offers complete
organic landscaping, lawn care, turf and property management services.
Lincoln Landscaping “The Natural Choice”
Mike Kolenut President & CEO
https://lincolnlandscapinginc.com
(201) 848-9699
