https://www.davisenterprise.com/news/school-board-puts-focus-on-garden-program/article

School board puts focus on garden program
By Monica Stark, Enterprise staff writer
Oct 19, 2024
A beautiful garden gate that Harper Junior allows for disabled students to access the
garden more easily than before. Redwood-raised garden beds at North Davis will serve
students for years to come. Children have seen the behind-the-scenes of the Davis Food
Co-op at little chef tours, which also include them making and eating a salad.
The list of Davis Farm-to-School projects continues to grow as Davis Farm-to-School
Program Executive Director and DJUSD’s garden and environmental enrichment
coordinator, Nate Tauzer works with the local native peoples to have a Wintun ecological
garden near Davis Senior High School’s STEM building.
Tauzer highlighted each school’s programming at Thursday’s Davis Joint Unified School
“School gardens are a great gateway for connecting students with food, helping students
link their food choices to personal health, the community, local farms, and their
environment. In general, this allows a strengthening of community by encouraging
students to connect with each other, working within the gardens, as well as with their
campuses,
” Tauzer said.
By working in the gardens, students can enhance their learning by providing a hands-on
learning environment for academic concepts by getting their hands dirty. Tauzer says
this encourages curiosity, offering students a chance to observe, explore, and immersive
styles within the natural environment.
“It also builds resilience, empowering students to
create, learn from failure. As gardening, as we know, has failure built into it and to try
again.
”
He said the garden program aligns very nicely with DJUSD’s graduate profile, and
strategic plan objective of having confident graduates prepared for life.
In his role, Tauzer helps with the infrastructure, replacing old beds, irrigation, supplying
areas to remove waste, and creating curriculum within the garden areas. He also supplies
essential resources such as plant starts compost and helps coordinate field trips for our
students.
Tauzer has been working with mapping out each garden site on the campus so that the
maintenance and operation have a clear definition of what is volunteer maintained and
what the district is taking care of, as well as having waste bins that are for the garden in
particular, and he helped label those bins.
He thanked the board for formalizing the garden enrichment coordinator position,
calling it “
crucial for streamlining and collaborating between the nonprofit Davis Farm to
School and the district.
”
Added Tauzer:
“DJUSD has demonstrated the commitment to bridging communication
gaps, ensuring that gardens continue to flourish and serve as an essential educational
resource for our students and community. So thank you very much.
He said the ongoing partnership has been strengthened by the support of the Davis
Farmers Market Alliance,
“
which has contributed to the nonprofit for over 20 years and
helped coordinate and facilitate projects.
”
Dorothy Peterson (1940-2016) was remembered throughout the agenda item for getting
the program started and serving the community as an educator for almost 40 years.
Peterson taught special education as well as second and third grades. She incorporated
garden-based learning techniques into her teaching and encouraged students to cook
with their families. After retiring, Peterson continued to serve the school district by
helping establish gardens at all of Davis’ schools. She also created and implemented the
DavisRISE waste management program at nine elementary and two junior high schools,
diverting and recycling more than half of the school waste from landfills and saving the
schools thousands of dollars in garbage fees. The Dorothy Peterson Memorial Butterfly
Garden at Pioneer Elementary invites visitors to
“touch, smell, listen and enjoy this
garden – it is designed to be interactive and filled with the love of learning, just like
Dorothy.
Monica Stark