By Guest Writer, Melaina Gasbarrino, Ontario EcoSchools Assessor
Spring has sprung and schools in the Niagara Region are showing off their beautiful School Ground Greening projects. Being on the road as an Ontario EcoSchools Assessor, I am awestruck at the variety of gardens, outdoor classrooms, and natural spaces schools have created to take learning outside.
Take for example, St. Kevin’s Catholic Elementary School in Welland: they reworked their existing garden care system and now individual students are fully responsible for their own plants. When the students talked about their favourite part of the EcoSchools program, they all said hands down they loved getting outside to garden.
Taking a stroll through Notre Dame Catholic Elementary School’s Rosary and Learning Garden gives a feeling of calm, and students credit this as the place where they got their green thumbs. The garden is in a well-trafficked area, and used frequently by staff and students.
Students at Our Lady of Victory in Fort Erie have taken a liking to cultivating their own vegetables and creating farm to table lessons – with the guidance of local notable, Farmer Rick. Students first learn how to plant, and then get out the shovels to dig in. Once the vegetables are harvested, Farmer Rick works with the school to make delicious salads, for true seed to table learning.
The students and staff at Stamford Collegiate in Niagara Falls are also expanding their Edible Garden. Not only are staff and students improving biodiversity, they are educating their school community on thinking and living locally. The edible gardens show wide diversity: from turtle ponds, to vegetable gardens and local fruit trees, it’s an outdoor space that promotes biodiversity and allows for hands-on learning.
The piece de resistance is found in St. Gabriel Lalemant’s natural playground, the first of its kind in the Niagara Catholic District School Board. For those unfamiliar with the term, a natural playground is a sensory space created out of natural and recycled materials. Traditional playground sets are replaced with tree stump seats, rock formation centres, and recycled tire areas. Gabriel Lalemant students are already making their mark: creating mountains of dirt and turning the rock formations into a kid-friendly teaching area
The best part of visiting schools as an Ontario EcoSchools Assessor is being able to see the ways students light up when they share the impact of these valuable green spaces. To all the schools in the Niagara Region, congratulations on supporting learning in the outdoors!
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