Student-led gardens flourishing across Caledon Public Schools

By Riley Murphy

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Macville Public School students are celebrating their harvest this fall after three successful years of a student-led vegetable garden project.

It has been three years since the Peel District School Board (PDSB) vegetable garden project began in Caledon public schools.

Three years ago, Trustee Stan Cameron had “a vision of helping to organize a vegetable garden on the site of all 16 Caledon Public schools.”

Supported by Director of Education Rashmi Swarup, Cameron shared, “Here we are three years later.”

Cameron said this initiative was made possible due to the staff, families, and community partners.

Students themselves from surrounding schools built the new raised garden beds.

Cameron said he knew this project would need a team of people to “help move it forward.” This team included Outdoor Education Coordinator Rob Ridley and two of his staff members, Karen Hutchinson, Manager of the Albion Hills Community Farm, and himself.

“We became the team of five who lead a team of 16 schools, which turned into almost 50 school vegetable garden champions,” said Cameron.

“Starting with no budget and having this kind of community support helps our students and schools measurably. Those supports represent models of kindness. We are all part of the village that it took to help make this happen,” said Cameron.

Macville Public School had a garden previously to this initiative, and Principal Robert Gardner shared that Cameron's “vision was to carry on what was already happening at Macville in terms of students learning about the land, learning about gardening, learning about sustainability and to take that even further and also bring families in.”

The students at the school complete a significant portion of their curriculum through the garden, shared Gardner.

But over the summer, while students are away, parents step in to ensure the gardens stay alive and well.

“It's a really nice community connection because there's so many people that go into making it happen,” said Gardner.

Gardner said the “local community is very much a farming community,” and multiple families in their school are involved in growing.

“We have so much land that we can teach this,” he says.

He also shared that Macville offers a Science and Technology program, where a significant portion of the curriculum and opportunities focus on biodiversity.

Macville School Council Co-Chair Charlene Brown has played a significant role in the initiative.

She began to think of the initiative at the same time as Cameron, as the in-ground gardens in schools had limited accessibility to wheelchair users.

“For me personally, knowing how to grow already and knowing how to preserve the things that I do grow, it was just overwhelming to be able to teach other people. It was exciting. And to be a part of it with the children is amazing because, let's face it, the world's not getting easier,” said Brown.

“As a parent, I'm very grateful that we're able to come in and do this. It's like Stan [Cameron] opened up this whole world,” she says.

She shared she would love to see all the children grow up and have access to this “special information,” as she says it will help them for years to come.

In the summer, Brown works to keep the gardens thriving and even installed a weed barrier to help other families care for the plants.

In the current garden, the two estimate there to be around 200 potatoes ready for harvest.

Gardner said with six families participating over the summer, it truly becomes a learning experience for all.

“Even if we didn't have all their children at the school, that parent's going to teach their child how to do it. It's just going to be a ripple effect all the way down the line, no matter what,” added Brown.

Gardner noted that through this initiative, a “real interest in gardening” has emerged from the students.

The most significant impact, he shared, has been on their Eco Team.

The team is composed of students in Grades Six, Seven, and Eight, and handles more of the challenging aspects of the gardens, as well as supporting younger students with their tasks.

“They're learning about the wider issues around sustainability,” said Gardner.

He shared there's a large variety of gardens at the back of the school, where these students implement their learning, with aspects such as native species versus invasive species, as well as pollinator gardens.

“We're fully involved and supportive because it's such a good thing that they're doing,” says Brown.

Brown shares that she also looks forward to the kids learning how to preserve the crops that they worked so hard to grow.

“One of the greatest things in teaching is inquiry-based learning,” says Gardner. “A lot of our students, they've noticed the overflowing gardens and realized that we're losing some crops for a variety of reasons. One of the kids' next steps is to build some trellises so that we can go up, build some supports for the plants that we've got that expand beyond the gardens.”

Gardner says in the future, they also look forward to “making even more connections with our Indigenous knowledge partners in terms of learning from ancient wisdom and exploring how we can teach kids more about Indigenous knowledge through land-based learning.”

Kids involved with the initiative gathered around their hard work and shared some of their favourite parts of working on the project.

12-year-old Aarav Bajoria earned $1,000 to increase biodiversity with their gardens around the school, thanks to the project he did in collaboration with others for the Young Reporters for the Environment challenge.

Other students shared benefits, such as being able to “reap the rewards” of their work, as well as the enjoyment of caring for and watering the garden.

Nine-year-old Ethan shared that gardening is “a lot more” than what he thought it was, but it was “a lot of fun.”

13-year-old Jiya Patel wrote a poem about the project.

She shared that she wrote it because she loves the garden and nature, which brings her happiness.

As the students, staff, and families enjoy the harvest season, they can certainly look forward to countless more years of learning and growing.