Garden Initiative

Faculty Sponsors: Jillian Landry and Leah Twilley

The Lafayette Parish Master Gardener Association in conjunction with the Lafayette 4-H Program established a school garden initiative during the 2009-2010 school year in an effort to engage youth and improve academic, life skill development and health. There are a limited number of resources that provide the horticulture-based knowledge one needs to create a school garden, especially information that is easily accessible and user friendly to educators without horticulture backgrounds. The garden must be incorporated as part of the school curriculum as an outdoor laboratory teaching anything from science, math, history, language art, and physical education just to name a few.

Through the school year, students participate in the entire development of the garden as well as a service component. They are part of the decision making process as it relates to basic gardening, preparing the soil, choosing crops, planting seeds, weeding and harvesting. The harvest has been used for healthy food demonstrations and the annual school cook-off. Youth are taught lessons in the area of improving nutritional choices, exercise and increase their awareness.

Green T. Lindon has been participating in the garden program for the last 5 years. Each year expanding the garden throughout the campus, teaching garden lessons to all grade levels, participating in math and science day, and using the harvest in recipes prepared by the teachers for their students.