The Shared Harvest Community Garden recently hosted a third-grade class from Sorensen Magnet School of the Arts and Humanities for an outdoor lesson and hopes to welcome more students in the future.

“This is kind of a new thing,” said Shared Harvest Community Garden board member Michael Lee. “We’re trying to expand our reach in the community to do things other than growing food.”

Sorensen teacher Moira DuCoeur brought her third-grade students to the garden to collect leaf and flower specimens for an art project while observing and discussing plant life cycles. Lee said students also observed the garden's bee colony as an example of a natural community.

DuCoeur said she is eager for future opportunities to bring students to the Shared Harvest Community Garden for outdoor lessons.

“It’s almost like an outdoor biology lab,” she said, “there’s so many examples of life.”

The collaboration between the Shared Harvest Garden and Sorensen began when Gayle Siemers attended the garden's Dinner Under the Stars event. He recognized the garden’s educational potential. With grandchildren enrolled at Sorensen and friends who teach at the school, Siemers encouraged Lee to reach out and invite teachers to use the garden as an outdoor classroom.

“I grew up having a great appreciation for trees,” Siemers said. “I guess it just stuck, and I wanted to do the same for my grandchildren.”

The garden gives students the chance to identify a variety of trees. The site is home to oak, cedar, maple, spruce, crabapple and hawthorn trees. It also features flowers and vegetables, a bee colony and birdhouses.

“There’s lots of great things for teachers to take advantage of,” Lee said. “They can do birdwatching, plant identification.”

Lee said the garden's compost pile gives students a chance to learn about decomposition and life cycles. He added that the garden's mission of growing food for those in need could support social studies lessons.

“Basically, the whole classroom is a garden,” said lead gardener Michael Lee. “They’re welcome to come down and use it.”

The garden has enough seating to host one class at a time, Lee said, with six picnic tables that can each accommodate about eight students.

Although the outdoor season is coming to an end, Lee hopes the garden will provide more educational opportunities in the spring. He plans to contact additional schools and encourage them to use the garden.

“The sky’s the limit,” Lee said.

    Third-grade Sorensen student Max Thompson collects flower samples at the Shared Harvest Community Garden.
  

    Third-grade Sorensen student Torren Redmond collects plant samples at the Shared Harvest Community Garden.