MVHS takes learning outdoors with new garden

Students at Mountain View High School have a new learning tool in their arsenal – a school garden.

The garden, officially opened April 8, provides an outdoor learning environment that should benefit many school programs.

“Our schools have ample and valuable acreage, but little thought has been given to creating outdoor learning environments,” wrote Vicki Moore, who helped spearhead the project, in an e-mail to the Town Crier. “This garden aims to provide just that.”

Moore said the garden serves the dual function of benefiting the high school as a whole and providing specific advantages for special-education students.

“Studies have consistently shown that garden settings and engagement in garden activities provide important therapeutic experiences for special-needs individuals,” Moore said.

At the grand opening, attendees snacked on salad cultivated from the garden by the high school’s special-education students.

Local designer and high school parent Astrid Gaiser designed the garden to include native plants, edibles and pollinators.

Biology, photography, English and other high school courses would benefit from using the garden, said Moore, who added that a biology teacher is using one planter box for an experiment in population density using radishes.

The primary use of the raised planter beds would be for edibles, such as lettuce and vegetables, and plants that attract pollinators and beneficial insects.

The native plant areas could tie in directly with the study of ecology and provide miniature “islands” of California native plant communities such as chaparral, coastal scrub or woodland plants, Moore said. The plants would attract a variety of birds, butterflies, hummingbirds and other native wildlife of the flying variety, which would serve to pollinate the edible garden plants.

The school PTSA provided most of the funds necessary for the garden. The school received $1,900 from the Santa Clara Valley Water District for replacing turf with primarily drought-tolerant and low-water-use plants and permeable hardscape.

Los Altos School District parent and local contractor Ken Kasik helped supervise the construction of the garden. Daniel Bernstein, a Mountain View High freshman, built the planter boxes as a project to earn his Boy Scout Eagle rank.

Moore added that many other students, parents and teachers contributed hours of labor to the garden.

Los Altos School District students learn the benefits of gardens through the Living Classroom project in the elementary and junior high schools. Moore said she hopes the Mountain View High School garden will eventually create a smooth educational transition for students coming from the Living Classroom environment.