St Patrick’s kitchen garden aids environment and learning

For World Environment Day on Friday 5 June 2015 St Patrick’s Primary, Blacktown partnered with Catholic Earthcare Australia to create the ‘Connect, Care, Share: Our Common Home’ video, which showcases the school’s kitchen garden.

The kitchen garden was established to create a natural approach to oral language through fun, activity and exercise.  
 
For the International Year of Light and Soils, Catholic Earthcare featured the St Patrick’s kitchen garden in a video showing how it enables students to learn about the role gardens play in growing fresh produce.
 
St Patrick's Primary Learning Support teacher, Maria Marks, found that by working together on the different projects in the garden, the students’ ability to socialise, communicate, connect and interact with their peers had improved.
 
‘Students need plenty of varied naturalistic opportunities for language use,’ Maria said.
 
‘The kitchen garden provides motivating learning experiences that challenge students both linguistically and cognitively.’

A volunteer for the kitchen garden, Clare Maloney said the students shone with confidence as they discussed the aspects of their outdoor learning space which are most important to them.
 
‘The kitchen garden group are able to discuss how vegetables, herbs and flowers are planted and nurtured with their teachers and are able to ‘act out’ how plants grow from seeds to maturity,’ Clare said.

With the support of a generous parent, the harvested produce was cooked and served to the students.