Community Gardens

Here, courtesy of BC Healthy Communities e-bulletin and Act Now BC, is another set of excellent resources for school gardens.

School Gardens
Healthy Eating at School now has a school food garden section! Click on 'School Food Garden' and you will be taken to a page where you can explore such topics as:
• How-to manuals for starting a garden
• Curriculum links for school food gardens
• A fantastic example of a school district policy on food gardens from the Vancouver school district
• Research on the benefits of school gardens for academic performance and health
• Barriers and challenges to gardening and how to overcome them
• Links to community partners and associations, including sources for funding
Check it out: http://healthyeatingatschool.ca

Links

A Woolly School Garden is everything a school needs to create an outdoor garden classroom and begin teaching gardening and nutrition. http://www.woollyschoolgarden.org/learn_more.php

Evergreen grants: http://www.evergreen.ca/en/funding/grants/telg.sn

A new report from the UK
www.rhs.org.uk/schoolgardening/uploads/documents/SEN_report2009-10_final_1049.pdf

Building vermicomposters
Learning for a Sustainable Future has a pretty thorough resource guide for building vermicomposters with elementary school students (along with relevant lesson plan ideas). You can get it on their ecoleague website - http://ecoleague.ca/en/vermicomposter/overview.php

Compost Awareness poster
The Compost Council of Canada has created this colourful poster

Apply for Environmental Funding
The TD Friends of the Environment Foundation has been able to help Canadians protect our country's natural beauty by providing environment funding for not-for-profit organizations across Canada. We're always looking for new and exciting initiatives, so review the information below and submit your application to receive environmental funding for your community project.

TD Friends of the Environment Fund Funding Focus Areas
TD FEF areas of focus include:

• Protecting and preserving the Canadian Environment
• Assisting young Canadians in understanding and participating in Environmental activities
• Supporting urban renewal such as environmental projects to rejuvenate smaller or at-risk neighbourhoods and "main streets"
• Enhancing cooperation among Environmental organizations

http://www.fef.td.com/index.jsp