Schools restore God's garden: environmental education teaches students to cultivate earth's beauty - Catholic Education

National Catholic Reporter, March 22, 2002 by Sharon Abercrombie

Kyle Williams, 11, loves working in St. Augustine School garden because he gets to chow down on carrots -- just like Bugs Bunny, his favorite cartoon character.

But the fifth-grader has another reason for helping tiny seeds grow into tasty food. "Before he died, my grandpa was a gardener. When I'm out here in the garden with Sr. Pat, it feels like he's right behind me," said the bright-eyed youth.

His teacher is not surprised. "On some level, I do think these children experience the presence of God or a loved one when they connect with the natural world," said Sr. Pat Nagle, co-director of the Oakland parochial school's gardening program and a member of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. "I was teaching the first grade how to save marigold seeds when one little girl suddenly jumped up on a wood bench and shouted, `Sister Pat, I see God.'"

It's been more than a few years since Basilian Fr. Don McLeod was 6, but he readily identifies with the youngster's view. "For me, God is a northern lake at sunset with a pair of loons calling to each other," said the principal of Bishop O'Dowd High School.

St. Augustine School and O'Dowd High School are miles across the city from each other, but otherwise they are kindred spirits. If spirits have color, their color is green.

Notions of environmental sustainability and spirituality have taken root in both school curriculums. The elementary version is a collection of raised beds blooming with flowers and vegetables tucked into a corner of an asphalt-covered play yard. The high school project is more extensive -- the eventual total transformation of a barren, water-starved hill, infested with invasive plants, brown patches of dead grass and weeds into a Living Laboratory with a series of ponds, native wildflowers, a grove of redwoods, a meditation and memorial garden, a waterfall, trail system, greenhouse, sculptures, a compost bin and a large vegetable garden.

St. Augustine and O'Dowd schools are among a small but growing number of Catholic schools in the Oakland, Calif., diocese that are bringing principles of ecological consciousness into their classrooms.

Bishop Moreau Catholic High School and St. Elizabeth Elementary School are involved in ambitious recycling and gardening projects.

They do so while, at the national level, the Bush administration continues to take a non-regulatory stance over such important issues as genetically altered food, the depletion of the ozone layer by greenhouse gas emissions, the death of species and rainforests. In these grim times, East Bay students, teachers and parents work at the grassroots level healing small patches of earth, as the White House continues to push for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

In doing so, parents, teachers and children hope to change hearts and minds one classroom, one neighborhood at a time. That may be where real reform starts anyway. In the words of Annie Prutzman, director of O'Dowd's Living Laboratory, it is all about "loving a little piece of land back to life."

NCR visited each of these havens of environmental consciousness. Like glass jars of pond water exposed to sunlight, new life teems everywhere.

Fruit of their harvest

A group of kindergarteners huddled expectantly around the black compost bin. It was their day to be out in the garden. And to say hello to their friends, the worms that live in the compost. There was a collective intake of breath, as Nagle took the lid off the box. Little hands reached in, gingerly seeking out the wiggly critters. "Oooh, they're so soft," one little girl whispered delightedly.

Nagle and her teaching colleague, Notre Dame De Namur Sr. Sharon Joyer, could repeat this ritual every day with the kids, if only they had the time. But the two sisters, the founders of EarthHome, their neighborhood gardening outreach, not only have St. Elizabeth School Garden to think about. They also work next door to the school with kids living at Elizabeth House, a residence for formerly homeless women and their children. The sisters started their garden three years ago with a $1,500 start-up grant from the Alameda County Waste Recycling Board, which provides funds to schools when a compost program is included in the educational curriculum.

Nagle and Joyer hope to one day harvest enough crops for food banks, but right now their kindergarten through fourth-graders enjoy salads and strawberry shortcakes, the fruit of their harvest, during each growing season. Students also take fruits and vegetables home to their families.

Last year, the duo began another garden in downtown inner-city Oakland, at St. Mary's Senior Center for low-income and homeless seniors. This garden is a collaborative effort between businesses, the East Bay Conservation Corps, schools, nurseries, architects, landscapers, homeless folks and preschool children who attend pre-kindergarten next door to the Center. Both seniors and moppets help plant and harvest. The resulting bounty often ends up as lunch for both groups.