Brookside Elementary School in Worthington, Ohio has taken 21st century learning skills for their students one step further. Brookside’s Principal Fritz Monroe observed his special needs students excelling in their work in the school’s flower gardens. The students were producing and harvesting plants, which helped them with both social and classroom skills. Working with the land was certainly beneficial to these students, and after more research, Mr. Monroe decided to offer Schoolyard Enhanced Learning to all of his students by creating a sustainable vegetable garden that could be shared by both the students and the community.
Starting in the fall of 2008, Brookside partnered with Columbus-based nonprofit organization Local Matters to develop The Three Sisters-Settlers Garden concept. Local Matters, whose mission is to improve accessibility to healthy local food through education, strategic partnerships, and thoughtful commitment of resources, agreed to provide funding and planning support for a ‘Dreamstorming’ community visioning session, an overall site design, and a portion of the initial cost of installing the gardens.
The ‘Dreamstorming’ visioning session, initiated in fall 2008 and facilitated by Rose McCarthy of Access Intuition, surfaced ideas for utilization of Brookside’s outdoor spaces via creative visualization techniques. Participants in the ‘Dreamstorming’ session included Brookside students, families, staff, and community members. Landscape designers Amy Dutt and Denise Gualtiere of Urban Wild ltd. then incorporated criteria from the session and historic site information in preparing a design for the The Three Sisters-Settlers Garden area.
The Three Sisters Garden, designed in the shape of a turtle shell, is the area designated for use by Brookside students, and incorporates planting areas for each grade level. This garden honors the traditional growing and planting practices of the Mingo and Wyandot, woodland Native American tribes that lived in the Worthington area. Their practice of interplanting corn, squash, and beans for complementary purposes provided the inspiration for the garden: the Three Sisters unity represents the collaboration of the school, the land, and the community.
Another feature of the Three Sisters Garden is a seasonal earth calendar designed by sculptor and former Brookside Elementary student Chris Taylor. Chris’ calendar will feature a gnomon whose shadow will indicate the solstices and equinoxes, ancient seasonal indicators for planting and harvesting. The gnomon will contain a vault for classes to insert seasonal mini time-capsules for discovery by future Brookside students.
The Settlers Garden, just west of the Three Sisters Garden, was designed to encourage community involvement. The layout honors the grid system of the land when it was divided and awarded to the Virginia sector of Revolutionary War soldiers after their service to our country. This year, The Settlers Garden will host a ‘cover crop’ of pumpkins so the soil can gain the essential nutrients it needs for future plans for more intensive food production; possibilities include growing produce for a school fundraiser or for donation to local Ohio food banks.
Currently in the formation stage is a leadership committee to assist the school with fundraising, organization of volunteer days, and planning of planting, watering, weeding, PR and marketing, and other support areas. The success of The Three Sisters-Settlers Garden at Brookside will depend on involvement of Brookside neighbors and surrounding community. This project presents a great opportunity to get involved in the community, to learn about sustainable food production, and to teach our children to love the land.
Also of interest is a healthy nutrition curriculum at Brookside that complements The Three Sisters-Settlers Garden Project. This curriculum, also funded and facilitated by Local Matters, is based on nutritionist Antonia Demas’ ‘Food is Elementary’ program. The curriculum creates an educational link to sustainable food production by providing hands-on opportunities for children to learn basic nutrition and food-preparation skills utilizing fresh, healthy ingredients. A trained two-person ‘Food Educator’ team facilitates the weekly one-hour lessons, currently offered to Brookside kindergarten students; planning is underway to expand the program to both first and second grade students.
