Growing Young Minds
Students learned about pollinators, decomposers, seeds, fruits, vegetables, and the diverse array of wildlife that also use outdoor garden spaces.
In a world where we rely on supermarkets to supply our food and regularly eat produce from around the world, it can be easy to feel disconnected from our local food systems. Our Farm to School program aims to reintegrate students, teachers, and families into our local food systems by teaching them about nutrition, local produce, and gardening. From 2021 through 2024, we implemented farm to school programming in partnership with four Early Childhood Education and Assistance Programs (ECEAPs) that provide free preschool and other programs to underserved families in Snohomish County: Trailside ECEAP, Clever Sprouts ECEAP, Granite Falls ECEAP, and Sky Valley ECEAP.
At the launch of the program, we constructed multiple garden beds at each ECEAP site to provide hands-on learning opportunities for the students. We filled the beds with healthy soil and compost, and helped students plant them with seeds and vegetable starts each year. The preschoolers enthusiastically became immersed in their new urban gardens, helping water, weed, and plant vegetable starts. The garden beds made it possible to grow healthy food for the students, teachers, and families, and also provided an opportunity for educational events focused on gardening and nutrition.
Snohomish Conservation District educators worked with Oxbow Farm and Conservation Center to develop six new preschool garden lessons. These lessons were facilitated with the students at each site and introduced the preschoolers to pollinators, decomposers, seeds, fruits, vegetables, and the diverse array of wildlife that also use outdoor garden spaces. After the lessons, students demonstrated a significant increase in their understanding of the interconnectedness of the parts of a garden; the benefits of worms, bees, butterflies, and insects to soil and plant health; and what plants need in order to grow.
Preschool teachers from ECEAP sites around Snohomish County took part in a teacher training to learn how to facilitate garden education in their classrooms.
To ensure teachers felt prepared to implement the garden curriculum on their own, we facilitated a teacher training for each ECEAP site along with two Snohomish County-wide trainings for any interested ECEAP teachers. These professional development opportunities introduced preschool educators to the curriculum, demonstrated several hands-on gardening activities, and explored how to incorporate gardening in both indoor or outdoor settings.
One teacher reported the training was “very interesting and useful, as well as inspirational to help me plan gardening and planting activities.” Another said they were excited to incorporate the curriculum in their lesson planning for the following week!
In an effort to include students’ families in our programming, we worked with Washington State University’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed) to facilitate two cooking demonstrations and one end-of-year celebration for each ECEAP site. Students and their families chopped cherry tomatoes and squash to make tortellini salad, minestrone, and stone soup for a shared dinner. They participated in a seed exploration and planting workshop, and took home vegetable seeds, vegetable starts, an educational packet, and a custom cookbook so they could begin their own edible garden at home.
“The training was very interesting and useful, as well as inspirational to help me plan gardening and planting activities.”
To wrap up our three year partnership with the ECEAP sites, we coordinated a “Farmer in the Classroom” experience for each site. An educator from Farmer Frog taught students about life on a farm using stories, specimens, and seeds from Farmer Frog’s campus. Students gained a deeper understanding of local farmers and were able to connect the plants and animals they observed in their school gardens to the ones found on local commercial farms.
Over the duration of the three year Farm to School program, we installed 20 raised garden beds and facilitated 44 garden lessons, five teacher trainings, eight cooking demonstrations, four end-of-year celebrations, and eight Farmer in the Classroom experiences across four ECEAP sites. We provided bilingual instruction in English and Spanish and translated educational packets into Spanish, Arabic, and Ukrainian to better engage diverse participants. As the 2023-2024 school year drew to a close, students knew how to care for their school gardens, wanted to invite pollinators and decomposers into their yards at home, and proudly told their families that seeds need sun, water, soil, and love to grow. Most importantly, these students grew their awareness of the reciprocal relationships between edible plants and the people who care for them.
As we look ahead, the District is committed to continuing to educate youth and families about local produce and gardening, and we appreciate the support of our partners who help this work move forward. Our curriculum, educational packets, and cookbook are available on our website for all to utilize and enjoy. Explore them with your family and consider growing and eating your own edible plants at home!
This material is based upon work that is supported by the Food and Nutrition Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.