EJ Magazine - Fall 2006: "Life Without Nature
Research suggests that children who live disconnected from nature suffer poorer mental, physical and psychological health. Some hope school gardens will heal bonds severed between children and the natural environment.
by sarah kozicki
The raised garden beds behind Dawes Elementary School grow vegetables and herbs.
It’s humid inside the greenhouse, and the rich, earthy fragrance of healthy soil permeates the air. Plastic stretched around the metal structure lends an extra four degrees of warmth, allowing fragile, leafy greens to grow during Michigan winters.
The raised garden beds behind Dawes Elementary School grow vegetables and herbs.
Photo courtesy of Lynn Hyndman
Ten elementary school students, two each from grades first through fifth, chatter excitedly as they move between the beds of lettuce and radishes. Their small fingers reach into the wet mass of greens, cutting leaves off one by one with safety scissors to drop into the waiting collection bags.
This is Gunnisonville Elementary School in Lansing, Mich., — a school of children primarily from urban, low-income families, and where 58 percent of students are on the federal free or reduced-cost lunch program. The existence of the greenhouse is due largely to Laurie Thorp, director of the Residential Initiative on the Study of the Environment (RISE) program at Michigan State University. The teachers at Gunnisonville use the greenhouse and a gar"
