the project
P.S. 31’s schoolyard garden will be a hands-on tool for food, nutrition, and health education to teach children the importance of healthy eating and living, as well as a way to "green" our community and further sustainability initiatives as an Eco-School. Our school garden will be a hands-on learning garden for our students to be actively involved in building, planting, maintaining, observing, writing, drawing, photographing, measuring, and enjoying the outdoors. In this space, we will teach art, health, language arts, math, music, physical education, science and social studies. Approximately 600 students and 45 teachers will use our school garden each year in grades Pre-K through Fifth grade.
Last year P.S. 31 started a Go Green Eco-Machine team, after becoming a member of Eco-Schools USA, that planted plants and trees around our school. Now, P.S. 31 has gained broad support from administrators, teachers, and parents who want to undertake a school garden project. We formed a Garden Committee and defined our vision and goals for our first garden to be raised this spring. We will build four 4 x 4 raised garden beds on our asphalt covered schoolyard to grow salad greens, zucchini, beans, carrots, kale, collards, peppers, tomatoes, basil and other herbs in a 20 X 30 foot area. We have received mini-grant funding to purchase some materials for basic garden construction including lumber, tools, soil, and seeds. However, additional funding is needed for constructing benches, fencing, and storage so that we can make it a user-friendly outdoor classroom.
the steps
Our first goal is to have the school garden built by March 2015. A parent volunteer will be building the raised beds in March. Seeds and supplies are being ordered. Outdoor planting will begin in early April and continue through May. By mid-April we will be building our benches, fencing around the garden, and tool/utility shed. Our fourth and fifth grade classes will share garden responsibilities, and make weekly visits to the garden to water, weed, and touch, taste and learn about the food they are growing. This will be a wonderful tie-in to our school's CookShop lessons and we hope to extend it further in the future as we envision more of a "farm to table" approach. By growing vegetable and herbs our children will better understand where their food comes, gain more positive food attitudes and participate in the school garden to build leadership, team work, and self-confidence through ownership of a project and collaboration with other students. While the upper grade students will be most responsible for the maintenance of the garden, we will invite other classes to observe and enjoy learning about our garden. This garden will serve as inspiration for art and writing projects as well as facilitating math and science lessons.
why we're doing it
Based in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, P.S. 31 is a Title I elementary school located in a community experiencing high obesity, asthma and cancer rates due to neighborhood air pollution (close proximity to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway) and neighborhood toxicity due to a major oil spill decades ago. The neighborhood is trying to improve environmental conditions and we would like to be a major advocate in this area. Many students come from economically disadvantaged and immigrant families. Nearly 72% of students are eligible for free lunches. Some are English Language Learners. Many parents work 50-60 hours or more a week just to provide food and shelter for their families. Many family meals often consist of fast food and canned food from the local store due to their economic and time constraints. As a school, we also face budgetary challenges and time constraints due to low staffing and restricted funds for enrichment programming. Our students need to know where their food comes from by learning up close and doing hands-on gardening activities.
budget
| ITEM | COST |
| Untreated wood for benches and fencing | $600.00 |
| Paint (primary colors 4 gallons) | $160.00 |
| Brushes | $25.00 |
| Hardware (nails, bolts, etc.) | $50.00 |
| Storage shed (Home Depot) | $400.00 |
| TOTAL COST: | $1,235.00 |
| SUBTOTAL = | $1,000 |
| ioby Platform Fee | $35 |
| 3rd Party Payment Processing Fee (3%) | $30 |
| TOTAL TO RAISE = | $1,065 |
DISBURSED BUDGET (as of 3/5/15):
| RAISED = | $1,215.00 |
| less ioby Platform Fee | waived |
| less 3rd Party Payment Processing Fee (3% of non-match funds) | $20.88 |
| TOTAL TO DISBURSE = | $1,194.12 |
| ITEM | COST |
| Untreated wood for benches and fencing | $600.00 |
| Paint (primary colors 4 gallons) | $120.00 |
| Brushes | $24.00 |
| Hardware (nails, bolts, etc.) | $50.00 |
| Storage shed | $400.00 |
| TOTAL COST: | $1,194.00 |
photos
This is where photos will go once we build flickr integrationdonors
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Parents of P.S. 31
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Parents of PS 31
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P.S.31 parents
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Jolanta T.
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Vu Nguyen/Lucy Nguyen 1-203
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
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PS 31 Parent
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Staff of PS 31
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K Bachmann
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Anonymous
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P.S.31 Teachers & Staff
