Westbrook Middle School Falcon Academy Garden

Since the 2021-22 school year Falcon Academy, the Westbrook Middle School alternative education program, has been working on a garden project! Now in its fourth year, the program has grown from 20 students to over 300 students!

The first year of the school garden program kicked off with the students building 7 raised garden beds utilizing donations from local businesses (Hillside Lumber and Knight Property Services) which resulted in 20 students working in the garden the first year!

In the second year, the program expanded from 7 to 15 raised beds and incorporated a composting program! They received support again from Hillside Lumber and Knight Property Services as well as new donations of seeds and tools from Fedco Seeds and Johnny’s Selected Seeds. They also decided to build an orchard with ReTreeUS and prepared the area to plant trees during the fall. With the Fifth Grade classes also planted in the garden incorporating scientific methods and social studies lessons related to the Wabanaki plus the Falcon Academy classroom planting in the raised beds, the program had grown from 20 to 130 students the second year!

In the third year they decided to give their produce to the cafeteria including potatoes that were grown over the summer as well as lettuces that were grown in the fall after students returned to school. Returning 6th graders (who had worked in the garden as 5th graders) were able to get back into the garden in the fall to complete the science experiments that they had started the year before and also utilized the garden space for learning about metric measurements.

About 100 students were involved in the planting of 10 apple and 10 pear trees for the orchard with ReTreeUS which also included lessons in plant and soil ecology. The orchard and lettuces that were harvested that year were provided through grants with ReTreeUS and the Arbor Day Foundation.

An educator from the Wild Seed Project visited to engage 8th grade science students in local ecology lessons as well as two Falcon Academy classes. The Wild Seed Project educator collaborated with teachers to ensure that the lessons and activities aligned with the educational standards. A guest educator joined all of the 7th grade science classes to teach about worm composting as the program prepared to engage in a school wide worm composting program. They also worked with staff to ensure they were hitting important educational standards that align with lessons in 7th grade science.

At the halfway point of the third year they had no fewer than 300 students engaged in the garden, Wild Seed Project, or worm composting!

Now, in their 4th year, the school has a greenhouse and aquaponics program under construction plus a garden shed, maple tapping going on, mushrooms logs to be inoculated, a cover crop to be planted among their orchard and a larger scale composting program to manage the food waste from our cafeteria.

They also have received grant funds from the Department of Education (DOE) and have been able to have the Wild Seed Project educator working with their teachers all year long to plan and facilitate outdoor lessons with teachers which are possible, in part, because of the work that has been done to create these outdoor learning spaces.

With the support of the teachers, Wild Seed Project, ReTreeUs, grants and their community donations they have been able to get just about every student at Westbrook Middle School engaged in an outdoor lesson this year and the good weather is just around the corner!