Garden Program Brings Student-Grown Produce to School Cafeterias
Asian pears grown by students in the ARPS Garden Program. Photo: Amherst Regiional Public Schools
Source: Amherst Regional Public Schools
Students working in Amherst and Pelham elementary school gardens are incorporating produce into school meals through a collaboration between the Amherst and Pelham Elementary School Garden Program and ARPS School Nutrition Services. The School Garden Program provides year-round garden-based learning for students in Grades K–6 in school gardens and classrooms. Jennifer Reese, Science and Social Studies Coordinator, and Leila Tunnell, Garden Educator, lead the program.
Garden activities are connected to Massachusetts science, technology, engineering, and social studies standards. Students participate in multiple stages of the growing process, including seed selection, planting, cultivation, and harvesting.
ARPS School Nutrition Services has used recent harvests from the school gardens in meals served to students. Three bushels of fresh Asian pears harvested from the Crocker Farm Elementary School garden, along with herbs grown at the Wildwood garden, were incorporated into school meals and served in ARPS cafeterias.
“For students, there is something incredibly powerful about seeing the full journey of food from a seed planted in their school garden to something being served in their cafeteria,” Superintendent Dr. E. Xiomara Herman said. “This collaboration brings academics, nutrition, sustainability, and community together in an experience students can see, touch, taste, and remember.”
Tunnell said the collaboration with ARPS School Nutrition Services expands the ways students can interact with food grown through the Garden Program. “We believe that garden-based learning should be accessible to every student, and have built our program around this value,” Tunnell said. “We are so fortunate to have the support and collaboration of ARPS School Nutrition Services to incorporate food that is grown in our school gardens into school meals, getting fresh and hyper-local fruits and vegetables onto the plates of our students!”
Garden Program Extends from Elementary Schools to Chestnut Street Academy
The program also uses produce for additional student learning opportunities. Crocker Farm fifth graders brought home sweet potatoes grown in the school’s garden. Students selected the sweet potatoes for planting during their fourth-grade studies based on their significance to their families, communities, and cultures.
Tunnell and Reese will also bring corn, beans, sunflowers, and squash grown by last year’s fifth graders to the Amherst Elementary School District’s Chestnut Street Academy for students to explore.