Woodlands Secondary School, Nanaimo BC
Grant term 2022-2024
In 2022, Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools, embarked on the journey of starting a school farm! With a vision to create a hands-on garden classroom and support food nutrition at schools across the district, we transformed part of a grass field at Woodlands Secondary School into a market garden.
Located on the traditional unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw Hwulmuhw, (Snuneymuxw First Nation) on Vancouver Island on the west coast of Canada, Woodlands School farm is situated at a Learning Alternatives school and is designed to be a district-wide asset for both education and food procurement.
After a year of designing, planning and building farm infrastructure, the first seeds were sown on Earth Day 2023. That fall, students enjoyed plucking warm cherry tomatoes to eat, fermenting cabbage and making farm-fresh soup.
Students from neighbouring elementary schools attended walking trips to the farm throughout the spring, tending the soil and learning by doing. Students seeded and transplanted spring vegetables, weeded garden beds, painted farm signage, built bug and snake homes, and connected learning across the seasons through collecting, cleaning and sorting seeds from last fall’s harvest. A K/1 Class from Cilaire Elementary connected classroom learning to the activities at the farm by planting bean seeds in their classroom and transplanting them at the farm, returning later to observe their growth. A Grade 1 student from the class wrote, “[I] really liked when I was planting my beans because I got to touch the dirt.”
As a pilot project, Woodlands School Farm is learning through growing. School farms are innovative and complex school food systems projects, and we are taking notes to help others as they navigate the journey! We are grateful for the web of community support, engaged teachers, enthusiastic students and dedicated farmers behind the scenes. Huy tseep q’u to the Learning Alternatives program for being gracious hosts, and to Sierra Club BC, who supported the facilitation of workshops through their land-based Education Program.
