The fascinating world of the Orca K-8 school garden!

This garden was created by so many people’s love, dedication, and hard work. Students, teachers, community members, and families, all helped create this lush garden. We started with the vision of a dynamic school garden that inspires community building, sustainability, and appreciation for the natural world. Now we really have sown the seeds of a great community resource. Thanks again for everyone’s help!

Here’s the garden in August of 2008!

August 2008- Orca Garden under construction

June 2009

What an incredible sight- students designing green buildings that have less of a negative impact on the environment. Teacher Matt Carter facilitated this project, but it was student lead and ran. Many classrooms came by to visit and get some inspiration from these future green engineers!

I think we all can agree that Seattle Tilth is one of the coolest organizations in seattle. They give classes on gardening and also host incredible field trips to their children’s garden. Maidi & Stacy’s class visited the Tilth garden and had a blast! they learned more about worms, mulching, and exciting plants that can be smelled, eaten, and felt!

http://www.seattletilth.org/

Many classes have been visiting the garden to find a great place to relax and write poetry. The poetry at Orca is incredible- these are seriously gifted and inspired poetry writers. The outdoor space of the garden is green and alive- a perfect environment for getting creative and enjoying some sunshine.

Our amazing Orca teacher Lily Hotchkiss coordinated a team of adults and students to create an incredible series of mosaics on the garden benches of our garden. All the mosaics were created with recycled/reclaimed materials. Toys, mirrors, broken tiles, marbles, glass- all came together to add a much needed artistic flair to the formerly plain gray benches! The SEED organization in Seattle has contributed a lot of volunteers and resources too. Check out their website here: http://www.seedseattle.org/seedarts/publicart.html

This is the first in a series of videos that will introduce the world to how we are promoting sustainability at Orca K-8 School.

http://vimeo.com/4893267

This was produced by Len Davis of Pangeality Productions.