Over the past four months, our group has been working with Little Mountain-Riley Park Neighbourhood Food Network coordinator on building a garden at Sir Charles Tupper Secondary (SCT). The Farm to School grant received by the secondary allows the school to start a garden. The upcoming school garden is hoped to benefit not only Tupper Secondary but also the six neighbourhood elementary schools. The aim of our project was to assess utilization of existing gardens in neighbourhood elementary schools, and to identify their interests and expectations on the upcoming school garden at SCT. We distributed an online survey to school principals, teachers, parents, and Society Promoting Environment Conservation (SPEC) coordinators. The survey consisted of ten quantitative questions revolving around school gardens with options to strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree to the statement. We started off our survey with an assessment whether the school has a school garden, then followed with specific questions such as “if your school has a garden, students and parents are enthusiastic about the garden.” and “if you do not have a school garden, the school is interested in building a school garden.”. To get a sense of school’s’ expectations on SCT garden, we also asked how the elementary schools would like to participate in SCT garden. We compiled the data and presented them as pie charts and bar graphs. Based on the results we gathered, we were able to identify that four schools have a garden and two do not. Our results also showed that there is high enthusiasm in existing school gardens and schools without a garden are interested in building one. All schools showed interests in participating in SCT garden through after school gardening activities, culinary projects, and internships; however, one school mentioned that due to its distance from Tupper, the students may not benefit as much from the garden. We were also able to identify two drawbacks: lack of funding and support from experienced gardening team. In order to maximize garden utilization at Tupper and elementary schools, we recommended allocating more funding towards school gardens, promoting possible gains of school gardens to parents, teachers, and other school members, and getting experienced gardeners and students to be involved in the garden.

REFLECTION ON A MOMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE 

We evaluated our progress based on the “What, So What, Now What” framework.

What

Throughout the final week of our community project, we experienced many challenges that ultimately had to be overcome in order to achieve our project goals.  Similar to how Will Valley described the wilting of a sunflower in lecture, we recognized the difficulty in concluding our project. Our data was collected, however as we began organizing our results, we were faced with difficulty in compiling the data in a meaningful way. With the various scope changes, our perception of our own project became blurred and we had to truly understand our purpose and objectives in order to put all of our information in perspective. In other words, we had collected information on six out of seven schools for a total of nine responses, and were satisfied with the survey results however we were wilted and confused, without a sense of inherit direction that we felt should be obvious at this stage of the project. The final week of our project encouraged us to introspectively analyze where we are now and what our project will provide for the community. Determining limitations, discussing survey results, describing methodology all had to be consolidated for a single purpose. Which would be to provide meaningful input for our community partner and providing a satisfying conclusion was our ultimate goal, however the final week of our project required significant thought and delicate analysis in order to achieve a successful outcome.

So What

During the final week of compiling and analyzing our survey results, we could not help but feel slightly overwhelmed at the amount of work that had to be done in such a short time. However, we gained a strong sense of motivation in knowing that the development of the school garden was partly dependent on the outcome of our project. As a group, we have come to understand the community at Little Mountain and our community partner’s passion in making this project successful. As we reminded ourselves of the significance of our project, we pushed our limits and finally managed to pull through in completing the final presentation. 

After the completion of our project, we felt a sense of accomplishment as we received positive feedback about our insights and recommendations. Although there were some limitations in our project, our findings provide a new perspective in looking at the new school garden. For instance, we were able to find out how neighbourhood schools can use the garden and what can they gain out of it. As we reflected on the process as a group, we came to a consensus that this experience was a valuable one as it allowed us to not only connect with the community at Little Mountain, but also with one another as a team. Reflecting back to the “Moods and Moments” chart we constructed in Week 3 as shown below, we are happy with the outcome of this project despite all the ups and downs. We faced the challenges together and we were always supportive of one another in times of need.

Our Moods & Moments chart constructed in Week 3 “Moments of Significance” workshop

Now What

We finished our CBEL project with satisfying results as we collected 9 replies out of the 11 participants who received the survey, which represented 6 out of the 7 schools including Sir Charles Tupper Secondary school and its 6 feeder elementary schools. Constructive feedbacks were obtained from the school members regarding possible strengths and limitations in building a new school garden. Some suggested activities in utilizing the upcoming Tupper school garden are garden-based learning activities, alternative food supply, and buddy program with high school students. We hope our survey findings and suggestions will be helpful for Little Mountain Riley Park Food Network in terms of developing their community, enhancing local food security, and in increasing sustainability through growing foods in schools. Nevertheless, consider the limited responses, further surveys or interviews with teachers and parents should be conducted for a more comprehensive understanding of everyone’s perspectives on this garden project. Similar survey questionnaires may be applied to Eric Hamber Secondary school and its neighbourhood elementary schools since we were unable to collect inputs from them. Meanwhile, we recommend schools and other stakeholders to allocate more fundings and reach out for experienced gardeners for their valuable thoughts and supports as the next steps of this project.

PROJECT CONCLUSION & ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Overall this experience has been satisfying and has pushed us to overcome challenges as a team that allowed us to persevere past our comfort zone to achieve success. Working closely with our community partner, Joanne McKinnon and with members of Little Mountain neighbourhood helped us understand the community better by allowing us to take an insider’s perspective to gather the needs and interests of the community members toward the upcoming garden at Sir Charles Tupper Secondary. We hope our project results will be useful going forward as proposed activities related to the garden were supported by school members who were also enthusiastic about the upcoming garden at Tupper Secondary. We are grateful and honoured to be part of the initiation of this project and are positive that this school garden will be a stepping stone that can lead Little Mountain neighbourhood to better community food security and establish a more cohesive sense of community within. We look forward to seeing the garden once it is completed.

Lastly, we would like to thank the teaching staff of LFS 350, Will Valley and Eduardo Jovel, our teaching assistant, Latika Raisinghani, and our community partner, Joanne MacKinnon, for their tremendous support and guidance throughout this journey. We would also like to thank all the school members that took their time to complete the survey. Without these individuals, this project would not have been as successful and as enjoyable to be part of.

—  Ann, Cristina, Danielle, Devita, Hameed, Jarine