About The Lyons Farmers
WHAT IS OUR MISSION?
Our school focuses on five core values—exploration, joy, rigor, justice, and growth. These core values guide the school’s work and vision while pushing each student to become curious learners and thoughtful citizens. With these core values as our guiding principles, the aim of The Lyons Farmers School Garden is to provide the school, students, and community with an outdoor learning resource to support curriculum areas and promote gardening, creativity, and environmental awareness. Our garden will connect students to the world of plants, nurturing delight and curiosity while inspiring an appreciation and sense of stewardship of the local environment. Students will take part in “hands on learning” about sustainable food, organic gardening techniques, biodiversity, and healthy lifestyles. The Lyons Farmers School Garden will be a creative space that beautifies the school grounds. It will provide a gathering space and landscape so the students may come together and respectfully connect to each other in a safe, natural, and inspiring environment for the purpose of sharing, learning, and building a sense of community gardening.
WHY DO OUR STUDENTS NEED A GARDEN?
Today both schools and parents have a unique opportunity--and an increasing responsibility--to cultivate an awareness of our finite resources, to reinforce values of environmental stewardship, to help students understand concepts of nutrition and health, and to connect children to the natural world. What better way to do this than by engaging young people, their families, and teachers in the wondrous outdoor classroom that is their very own school garden? Research has shown that outdoor learning promotes students’ academic achievement, self-esteem, and conflict resolution skills. Additional research indicates that children and adolescents do a better job of keeping themselves focused and motivated when they learn lessons in outdoor, natural settings.
WHEN DO STUDENTS VISIT THE GARDEN?
All Lyons Farm Elementary students visit the garden at least once per month during their scheduled Exploration Time, and they will be encouraged to visit more often as each class is able. During Exploration Time, they will participate in a scheduled and prepared lesson with an expert community member and/or parent volunteer. If you are interested in helping with these lessons, please visit our Volunteer page. If you would like to learn more about the specific lessons taught in the garden, please visit our Garden Curriculum page.
WHO WILL CARE FOR THE GARDEN?
During the school year, the students will be responsible for many aspects of garden maintenance, including planting, weeding, watering, mulching, and harvesting. During the summer months, families can volunteer to help care for the garden for a week at a time.
WHO IS MANAGING THIS PROJECT?
All garden maintenance and lessons will be managed by The Lyons Farmers committee, which includes parent volunteers, administrators, and community advisors. If you are interested in serving on The Lyons Farmers Committee, please contact us!​
WHAT ARE THE FUTURE PLANS TO GROW THE GARDEN?
We were very busy during our inaugural year! Thanks to our STEM teacher, Ms. Brickhouse, the 2023-24 fifth grade class had a competition to design the garden. We started with six raised beds for fruits and vegetables and eventually added a fence, an arbor, a trellis for climbing vines, a shed, benches, and even a Little Free Library (thank you Book Harvest!!). We also added gravel walkways to make the garden ADA accessible and lined these walkways with engraved bricks to commemorate the first year of Lyons Farm Elementary School. In the front of the school we installed a pollinator garden with native wildflowers planted by the students. In our second year, we plan to add more raised beds, a compost bin, and a sensory friendly area for the children, as well as additional fruit trees and shrubs throughout the property. If you have ideas for future projects, please contact us!
WHO PAID FOR THE GARDEN?
We are very fortunate to have such incredible support from our community for this project. Specifically, there are a number of local businesses that generously sponsor our garden--please scroll down on our homepage to visit their websites and show thanks. We also received several grants from organizations that are committed to outdoor learning in schools. Finally, donations from individuals and proceeds from our cookbook have also contributed to our garden budget. Without this generosity, our students would not have access to this valuable outdoor learning space. We are so grateful for this financial support, and also for the countless hours that volunteers have spent building the garden!