The staff at Parkway Elementary School love having gardens on site to enhance their student’s learning, but they don’t have the resources to provide year-round garden maintenance.  This is where Shannon Carroll, a Garden Coordinator with Lettuce Learn, comes in. She manages the raised beds, passive solar greenhouse, pollinator gardens, and forest trails that the students love to visit.

Shannon also comes up with fun ideas, such as planting a “pizza garden” filled with tomatoes, peppers, and basil, to show the students that garden-fresh produce is delicious too. She does this work through Lettuce Learn, a network that supports school gardens in Boone. Lettuce Learn provides training for school gardeners, a network of volunteers, and resources such as a garden library, free seeds, and tool share.

The students learn from the gardens in many ways. They planted a pollinator garden and learned about the importance of pollinators (such as bees and butterflies), which are necessary for plants to produce fruit or seeds. They also help plant and tend to the gardens throughout the school year.

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In “Sci Pals,” middle schoolers are paired with 1st graders to learn about science together, and they often do so in the gardens. Every spring, local “frogologists” visit the garden to teach the students about frogs and toads. Through Bonnie Plant’s Cabbage Program, all 3rd graders receive their own free cabbage plant, a popular green in the area. Finally, Shannon holds “taste tests” of unfamiliar vegetables, often featuring a vegetable that is growing in the school garden.