Featured Hawaiʻi Island School Garden - October
This summer, Mountainview Elementary School hosted one of 7 synchronous school garden workdays organized by HISGN in partnership with the Hawai’i Island Food Alliance. Teacher and Garden Coordinator Jamie Lewis shares with us about their garden.
Q: What is the name of the garden?
A : Mountain View Mala is the working name for now... It may change as it continues to grow and we get more insight, and involvement.
Q: When was it established?
A: It was established when we were awarded the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation Grant which bought and supported in planting an orchard on our campus. Mountain View always had garden beds for classrooms to use and after school clubs, however it became a school-wide endeavor with the planting of the orchard.
Q: Who is responsible for the garden?
A: I, Jaime Lewis, am the garden coordinator. I also consult with my Vice Principal and our Garden Teacher Matt Mittermeyer.
Q: Will you tell us about some of it's design features?
A: Mountain View Mala consists of garden beds near classrooms, an orchard, a lei mala/laʻu lapa'au and a staff garden. We are planning to rebuild a learning garden that was deconstructed this past summer due to campus construction. Our garden has also had an aquaponics component, however parts were stolen years ago and we are currently looking for support on how to get it back up and running.
Q: How do students use the garden & how is incorporated into curricular activities?
A: In the past 4 years we have worked with FoodCorps service members where they provided resource classes to all 450+ students across all grade levels in activities in the garden. Currently Matt and I are working on creating a garden curriculum resources that connect to NGSS for each grade level to encourage teachers to utilize the garden and learning outdoors in their science teaching.
Q. What happens with the produce grown?
A. We share the produce with families and we do taste tests. We plan to develop a garden to cafeteria program as our garden continues to grow.
Q. What are some benefits of the garden to your school?
A. The garden provides students with a chance to learn in the real world, literally from the ground up. Gardens connect to all subject areas of learning. Place-based, project based, STEM learning is essential to successful college and career readiness curriculum. Garden learning offers just this!
Q. What are some challenges in your garden?
A. The biggest challenge to the garden is time and comfortability with teachers to engage in garden/outdoor learning.
Q. How can the community get involved in helping the garden?
A. Community can get involved by joining us for garden work days, share your mana'o with teachers and students with presentations and demonstrations, support the garden with seeds, be vendors for possible farmers market sales and provide a strong resource to support rebuilding our aquaponics system.
