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Gardening for the Environment

by
Bill Whorton

The Washington Youth Garden is a nonprofit one-acre organic children’s garden that has been on the grounds of the U.S. National Arboretum since 1971. Programming in environmental and nutrition education is offered year-round at local schools, community organizations, and on-site.

During the past school year, we brought our Garden Science program to six third and fourth grade classrooms at three elementary schools in Ward 5 of the District. For eight weeks, we teach how to use gardening as a tool to teach environmental science. Along with lessons in the importance of plants, soils and composting, and insect life cycles, we start seeds in the classroom with the help of a grow light. After the eight weeks, Washington Youth Garden staff and DC Master Gardeners support the school in designing and installing a schoolyard garden. Those seedlings that we started in the classroom are transplanted out in the school garden come springtime. To cap off the program, each class comes out to our site at the Arboretum for a full day gardening and a cooking experience.

Though our Garden Science program is limited to elementary schools in the District, schools from the entire Washington Metro Region can experience the Youth Garden through our SPROUT Program (Science Program Reaching OUT).

The US National Arboretum sits right on the Anacostia River, with a dock and access point through its Asia Valley collection. We often take groups down to this part of the Arboretum to see the river and conduct watershed education activities. There are many connections between gardening and caring for our local waterways. We utilize organic growing methods for many reasons, but one reason is that we don’t want chemical fertilizer or pesticide runoff from our garden entering our neighboring Anacostia River. Just like the DDOE’s River Smart Schools Program written about below, we hope to further establish the connection between gardening, the fruits of which are healthy for our bodies, and the health of our environment.

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