"As a child, one has that magical capacity to move among the many eras of the earth; to see the land as the animal does; to experience the sky from the perspective of a flower or a bee; to feel the earth quiver and breathe beneath us' to know a hundred different smells of mud and listen unself-conciously to the soughing of the trees."
-Valerie Andrews, "A Passion for this Earth"

Research Questions:

Initial Questions:

• How can we transform the Boulder Journey School garden into a place that shows the food heart of our school, containing the colors and flavors reflective of our community of families?
  
• How can we utilize the garden space more?
  
• How can we support and nurture the joy in the experiences the children are having in the garden?
• How intentional are we in our planting?
  
• Why are we choosing to plan the things that we are planting?
  
• How can we involve the families in our choices?
  
• How can the different cultures of our school be shown in the foods we are planting in the garden?
  
• What skills and resources do the parents of the children in our school have that might help create a beautiful garden at our school?
  

New Questions (formed as the project develops):

• What do young children want to plant when given the choice?
• How can we create a unified cross-school garden with many different classrooms, ages of children, and types of garden beds?
• What are the best developmentally appropriate ways to garden with young children?
• Toddlers naturally want to dig in the dirt and pick leaves. How can we provide these opportunities for them to do this in a way that doesn't harm germinating seeds?
• What are the best ways to document and share experiences when there are so many different components to this project (classrooms, outdoor spaces, ages, crops, garden beds, etc.)?
• How can we collaborate with The Kitchen Community around the use of their Learning Gardens?
  

Resources:

Chef Ann Cooper

​Lunch Lessons, Changing the Way we Feed our Children
Chef Ann Cooper

Kimbal Musk

​Reinventing the Role of Restaurants in Changing America's Food Culture

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Nature Play Space Consulting

Sarah Edwards is the Director of The Elm Tree, a toddler learning center located in North Boulder.  She has worked with her school community to develop wonderful natural playscapes and gardens at The Elm Tree, and seeks to share her passion with others.  We are so grateful to her for sharing her knowledge and experience with us as we embark on our own garden adventure at Boulder Journey School.  

Check out her blog:
http://theelmtree.org/play

Contact her:
naturalplayscape@gmail.com 
303-442-7140

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The Kitchen Community

The Kitchen Community, a 501c3 nonprofit, was established in 2011 as the philanthropic arm of The Kitchen restaurants to connect kids to nutritious food by creating Learning Gardens in schools and for community organizations across America.

Jen Lewin Studios designed the Learning Garden as an easy, affordable, scalable school garden solution; it is an attractive outdoor classroom and experiential play space with edible vegetables.  Learning Gardens are designed to be places kids want to play and teachers want to teach, thereby helping to decrease childhood obesity, improve academic performance, and strengthen communities.

The Kitchen Community has helped create 76 school and community center Learning Gardens, with an additional eight Community gardens across the U.S.

The Kitchen Community