Illahee Elementary Garden Classroom - a community effort
Evergreen Public School’s Illahee Elementary has an incredible Green Schoolyard that has grown over the years. We checked in with their garden coordinators Becky, Erin and Christine to hear how it has developed over the years, challenges, tips and reflection on how it can be more integrated into the fabric of the school and classroom to include even more students.
Tell us about Illahee Elementary’s outdoor spaces, school garden, etc.?
Illahee Elementary has a school garden space that includes several raised beds, a pollinator garden, an herb garden, a cutting garden and mature blueberry bushes. There are two 12-foot picnic tables in the garden to fit a classroom of students. There is also a new outdoor classroom with 2 mature trees and 3 newly planted trees from the City of Vancouver’s Urban Forestry and enough seating for two classrooms of students (or one socially distanced one). Along the boundary between Illahee Elementary there is a newly planted line of trees and by the parking lot there is a backyard habitat certified garden that features native plantings as well as bird and butterfly friendly flowers.
“Some students that sometimes hesitate to participate in class seemed at ease and focused in the garden space.”
It sounds like the connections made through being a part of the Lower Columbia Nature Network helped with those green schoolyard features. Tell us how you learned about the resources and what they’ve meant to your school.
Becky: The connections we have made through Lower Columbia Nature Network and their partners have been incredibly helpful. In particular, we never would have built our classroom, or planted any trees, without the inspiration and leadership of Jane Tesner Kleiner from Nature Play Designs. Her Campus Update Plan for Illahee was the inspiration and motivation that started the whole project. And her advice for how to approach grounds projects was incredibly helpful too.
Erin: We were first connected to Jane when the garden team contacted the Watershed Alliance’s Backyard Habitat Program to sign up for a schoolyard assessment. Because of the connections between nature-oriented groups through LCNN, Bethany with the Backyard Habitat Program knew that if our school was interested in being more green we should involve the Greening of Schoolyards program and Jane came to our initial Backyard Habitat site assessment. We now have a 10-year Greening of Schoolyards Campus Update Plan with a PTA budget for one yearly project. Last year we installed an outdoor classroom, this year who knows! We’ve also gotten some great ideas through the WSU Master Gardener school garden tours including a square foot gardening lesson from Kris Potter at River Homelink that we taught in the garden this last spring. We were also connected to the City of Vancouver’s Urban Forestry program and were able to coordinate a socially distanced tree planting on the 1-year anniversary of the school shutdown. Clark County Green Schools came out to teach a composting lesson to our school Green Team this last Spring, our school has a great Green Team that partners with the garden program. Christina worked with Erika at WSU Master Gardeners to borrow a really neat seed lesson plan that included all sorts of fun props and extras, the students really enjoyed it!
How did you come to be the garden coordinators?
Becky: I started helping with the Recess in the Garden program when my daughter was in 1st grade. That year I learned about the Campus Update Plan that Jane Tesner Kleiner had developed for our school, with all of the options and ideas for projects around the campus. Jane and our principal organized a tree planting at Illahee that same year, and watching that project unfold, I saw how there were a lot of moving parts involved in school grounds projects. From getting permission, to deciding what and where to plant, to coordinating with district staff about the locations of underground utilities and sprinkler heads. I thought it might be a good idea to have one person focus on the grounds projects, to manage all those moving parts. So I stepped into that role.
Christina: I have always loved gardening, so when the School Garden topic came up at a PTA meeting I expressed my interest to Erin who was the main garden lead. She welcomed me in and taught me a lot!
Erin: When my son started at Illahee in 1st grade (he’s now in 7th at Shahala) he really struggled to settle into the routine (that’s a nice way of saying he was running out of class and through the halls). He used to refuse to eat lunch because of the sensory overload in the lunchroom (which is the school gym) so I would often come in to take him out to the garden to eat lunch. He was so calm when we were in the garden. In class he couldn’t seem to focus on anything for more than 2 seconds and never sat still. In the garden a calm focus takes over him and he could spend the entire 15 minutes of recess carefully lifting leaves and stones to collect roly poly bugs to show off to other students. He never connects well with his peers but as soon as he has a bug or interesting nature fact to share he becomes eager to connect with them. It is an amazing transformation and I think that all students can benefit so much from any amount of learning time outdoors. I was inspired by this experience to connect with a group of other PTA members and create a volunteer-led Recess in the Garden program.
What do your roles involve?
We all pretty much work together to do whatever needs to be done but we do have some different areas of focus.
Becky: Last year we installed a new outdoor classroom at Illahee. My focus was mostly on driving that project forward. I organized community donations, coordinated delivery of materials, organized a volunteer work party and tree planting, organized the fifth grade classes to help build benches, and wrote a successful grant application to help fund the project.
Christina: Wherever there is a need for help, I try to jump in if I can. I help with emails, garden activities, and planning.
Erin: Christina also planned and taught seed-starting lessons with individual classrooms last year and our raised beds are filled with sunflowers, zinnias and tomatoes as a result. :)
Erin: I do the planning and coordinating for the Recess in the Garden program. I also focus on general garden upkeep and maintenance (though with a lot of help). I have taught lessons in classes and other various activities as they come up.
How do you activate your school community to assist with the garden program and outdoor learning?
Becky: There was a lot of community involvement in our outdoor classroom project, from school staff, and students, to families and volunteers, to the district grounds crew, to donations from local businesses. I know that Jane had the school staff fill out a survey about the Campus Update Plan, to get feedback on project ideas, long before we had even heard of the Campus Update Plan. Then we did another survey asking staff and our families which project they would like us to focus on first, and they chose the outdoor classroom.
We had a lot of help from the district grounds crew. They brought out a backhoe to help us with some digging to get the site ready for our gravel pour. The gravel was donated by Cadman Materials - they generously donated over 20 yards of gravel for our project. We planted trees in the classroom that were donated by City of Vancouver’s Urban Forestry department. Not only did they donate the trees, but they are going to water them for us, for five years, to help them get established. Local businesses also gave us discounts on lumber, landscape fabric, and wood sealer to help our school.
We had a lot of help from some dedicated volunteers. Ten families came to help us spread gravel and plant trees, in the pouring rain. Fifth graders used power tools to install the screws and complete our benches. I think our community really enjoyed helping with this project.
We also actively recruit parent volunteers to help run our Recess in the Garden program. It is always more fun, when we have lots of adult volunteers helping out, and the response from our community has been really great. We also always need help with garden upkeep and maintenance. We have a garden email list that we recruit volunteers from whenever we have projects that we need help with.
What are the challenges?
Erin: Of course, gardening in the school garden has many of the same challenges as managing any garden: working with unexpected weather, managing pests, keeping on top of weeding and pruning, fixing the drip tubing from time to time etc. For the school garden there are added challenges that aren’t garden related like how to best manage an email newsletter, how to format a digital flyer that works for everyone, how to get the frequency of communication right without spamming people. For the plantings it’s trying to time everything to be ready when students are present and keeping everything alive through the summer. It’s all worth it to see the joy on the faces of students when they see a frog on a leaf or the first leaves of a newly sprouted seed come up. We have a really strong team this year and it really feels like the sky’s the limit for where they will take the garden program in the future.
We have an amazing community of volunteers and staff who are interested in and excited about the school garden. In fact, everyone I know believes that school gardens, outdoor learning and connecting kids with nature is important and beneficial. This is also backed by science time and again. With this in mind, the most challenging thing about school gardens is that not every school gets to have one.
Can you tell us about instances where student behavior was aided by time in the outdoor spaces or garden?
Christina: Whenever I see classes in the garden, no matter the age, they seem at ease. Even those that have behavior or other challenges seem interested in exploring what nature has to offer; whether visually, by touching and holding plants or bugs. Some students that sometimes hesitate to participate in class seemed at ease and focused in the garden space.
Erin: When I am working on garden upkeep during school hours I often have paraeducators bring the student they are working with 1:1 out to the garden when they are having a difficult time with behaviors. The garden is incredibly calming and there are so many ways to experience it. My favorite way to draw a student in is to start petting the lamb’s ear like I would pet a cat, even the most frustrated or angry student can’t seem to resist coming over to see how soft those furry green ears are. Next they can pick a sprig of thyme or mint and bring their hands to their nose and breathe deeply, you can visibly see their whole body begin to relax, it’s like magic.
What do the outdoor spaces/garden mean to the students?
Christina: Students love spending time in our beautiful garden. Our Recess in the Garden program is very popular among all grade levels - many kids consistently choose to spend their recess time exploring our garden space. They get so excited about spending time in nature. They love potting plants, building bee houses, and peering under rocks and logs to see what fascinating creatures are hiding underneath.
Erin: Kids also really enjoy coming to the garden for special projects with their classes…. Last year we did classroom sign-ups for bulb planting. When the bulbs came up in the spring students were delighted to see “their” bulb coming up and watch it bloom. When working in the garden in the Summer I have had families stop by the garden because a student begged their parents to bring them to check on the seed they planted, the awe in their faces when they realize those sunflowers are now taller than they are makes all the weeding and irrigation woes 100% worth the effort.
Becky: Our staff and students have also been enjoying their new outdoor classroom. Despite a very wet spring, many classes used our classroom last spring. We saw a nice variety of activities, from writing lessons, to art and music classes, and more! It is also a popular spot for a snack break. Teachers have commented on how calm and focused their students are during lessons in our classroom, and they are excited to plan more lessons outside. We are excited to see what they do!
