Sixty guests from the school community and members of the public attend Toronto Adventist School’s (NSW) inaugural Garden Open Day.
Having participated in outdoor classes as part of the school’s regular garden program, students were armed with a range of skills and knowledge to impart to others through a series of garden master classes.
The student gardeners were eager to share their knowledge on a variety of topics, including worm farming, natural pest control, crop rotation, as well as the benefits of chickens in the garden and the health benefits of vegetables.
Following the master classes, the students manned 12 stations for guests to visit and find out more about how the weekly garden classes operate. The visitors were genuinely interested as they gleaned information from the younger generation. A Market Day Shop raised $A138, primarily through sales of kale green smoothies and scones with rosella jam and cream.
As this presentation was an exemplar for the educational Project Based Learning model, lecturers and pre-service teachers from Avondale University College were in attendance. They were highly impressed with the student gardeners’ knowledge and expertise.
“The students were certainly engaging and entertaining,” commented lecturer Jill Pearce. “The knowledge base gained with the co-operative learning skills, developed through this hands-on experience in the market garden context, will stay with these children for a long time.”
