Living Classroom Sites
Although many of the Living Classroom lessons can be taught in conventional school settings such as lawn and landscaped areas, most of the elementary schools in the Los Altos Elementary School District have dedicated gardens or planting spaces for educational use and Living Classroom lessons. These gardens also provide a place for unstructured creative play during recess. Mountain View High School, which is the follow-on high school for half of LASD students, also has a Living Classroom garden built to the same principles. In addition, the Los Altos High School Gardening Club installed a reclaimed redwood planter box garden last August. Club members are planting and harvesting seasonal herbs and vegetables.
Oak Avenue Elementary School, Los Altos
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Oak School has three separate educational gardens. The quarter-acre Native Plant/ Creative Play Garden was completed in August 2005 and features California native species such as redwood, incense cedar, big leaf maple, western sycamore, western redbud, valley and coast live oak, and buckeye trees and an extensive array of bushes, grasses and flowers representative of several California Native Plant communities. With meandering paths, boulders, a sand play pit, play area, a redwood ampitheater, and an old fashioned hand-pump and dry creek bed, this is a popular play area during recess as well as a valuable educational garden used for the study of ecology and habitats. The garden and neighboring redwood trees also provide an official Western Bluebird Trail and features cavity nester bird boxes which are monitored each spring by students. The boxes have been used by many bluebird and chickadee families! The garden is also an official Certified Wildlife Habitat site by the National Wildlife Federation.
The Oak Edible Garden is a separate garden near the lunch tables equipped with irrigated planter boxes, planter beds, and a greenhouse. It is used for classroom experiments as well as supervised activities during lunchtime called the "Nature Zone" run by parent volunteers. At the Nature Zone, students plant, harvest and eat the food they grow. Lastly, a small Kindergarten garden includes a few planter boxes and a teepee for growing beans and peas.
As at Springer and Loyola Schools, plant and food waste is recycled through composting and vermicomposting (worms). The compost is then used for the gardens to enrich the soil.
Springer Elementary School, Mountain View
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Completed in August, 2008, this garden features planter boxes arranged in the form of a butterfly and dragonfly and many other raised beds to accommodate a large bounty of fruits, vegetables and herbs. The garden features many edibles outside the planter boxes including fruit trees, grape, passion fruit and kiwi vines, blueberries and strawberries. A designer quality outdoor kitchen allows for easy preparation of fresh food dishes during the lunchtime recess garden program. A creative play space with the ever-popular hand-pump and creek bed is set amidst California native plants which are scattered all around the garden on mounds. A shaded outdoor seating area large enough to accommodate an entire class and a one of a kind hand painted garden shed are additional features. Springer School’s garden features all key elements of the Living Classroom garden in one 7,000 square foot area. Construction of the garden involved tearing out approximately 2,900 feet of blacktop! Click here for link to the Springer School webpage featuring the garden.
Loyola Elementary School, Los Altos
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Loyola School boasts a popular "Secret Garden" featuring raised planter boxes in a circular pattern, windmill, a garden dome which grows gourds in the spring/summer and sweet peas in the fall/winter, several garden play areas, a compost and vermicompost area, a butterfly/hummingbird garden, and sensory garden. Additional features include a shaded seating area with a trellis and a labyrinth constructed in August, 2009. At lunchtime parent and community volunteers offer students activities in the garden such as planting, harvesting, saving seeds, composting, and garden maintenance. The new Native Habitat Garden was completed in November, 2009 along the edge of the blacktop and as a continuation of the Secret Garden. The native habitat garden features native plants from the chaparral, redwood, oak woodland and riparian plant communities planted in mounds and will be used for life science lessons and native american students. It also includes a dry creek bed and pathway for wheelchair accessibility. There are also a series of mini gardens along the breezeway running through the classroom wings planted with native plants, plants used by Native Americans, and pollinator/beneficial insect attracting plants. In addition, many other classroom planter boxes are used for Living Classroom lessons.
Santa Rita Elementary School, Los Altos
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Santa Rita school has two small native plant gardens completed in 2008 and early 2009 - one around the flagpole near the blacktop which is used for lessons on habitats, pollination, native american students and sustainable gardens and a redwood garden featuring plants native to California's redwood forests in a small area outside the first grade classrooms - also used for habitat and other lessons. The redwood garden also provides a quiet, shady place to read and play for the first graders. The 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grade classes also have planter boxes outside their classrooms planted in the themes of Native American Indians, Ancient Civilizations, American Colonial and Pollinator/Beneficial insects. The lunchtime Ecology Club helps take care of these gardens.
Almond Elementary School, Los Altos
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The Almond School Native Habitat garden, located just behind the office and multipurpose room, was completed in May, 2009 and features plants from the chaparral, oak woodland and grassland plant communities. It includes blue oak, buckeye and western redbud trees, many colorful shrubs and flowers, a seating bench, dry creek bed and a wheelchair accessible pathway. This garden was primarily funded through a rebate by the Santa Clara Valley Water District because water thirsty grass was removed and replaced with drought tolerant native plants. This garden is used for a wide range of life science lessons in multiple grades and serves as a quiet place to observe the plants and the wildlife it attracts such as butterflies, hummingbirds and bees.
Gardner Bullis Elementary School, Los Altos Hills
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Gardner Bullis School has two small educational gardens--one for grades K/1 which features raised planter boxes for edibles, a teepee for growing vine plants such as grapes, beans and peas, two espaliered fruit trees (apple and pear), and mosaic stepping stones made by students. This garden is used for many Living Classroom lessons and will offer a bounty of fresh vegetables and fruit. The grade 2/3 garden includes an area for growing winter wheat and tomatoes which are used for Living Classroom lessons and mounds for California Native American Indian "3 Sisters" gardens and native plants used by the Native Americans. Some teachers are using the planting space for other uses such as plants used to make dye and aN herb garden.
Blach Intermediate School, Los Altos
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Blach Intermediate School features a new California Native Habitat Garden at the front entryway area of the school newly planted in September, 2009 by staff, parents and students. Many other California native plants are also found all around the campus as are an extensive array of beautiful garden spaces planted by volunteers over the last six years. The science courtyard features five raised planter beds installed in 2005 growing edibles including citrus trees, a robust artichoke and many types of herbs. Blach students and teachers enjoyed a bumper crop of Thompson Seedless and Concord grapes this past fall grown in wine barrel planters. A new grape trellis structure will be installed to support these prolific plants. And coming soon, a greenhouse will be installed in the science courtyard for use by the science and other classes and a possible new "ecology" elective.
Mountain View High School, Mountain View
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Although not part of Los Altos School District's Living Classroom program, the garden at Mountain View High School was built along the same principles. The garden has two 3' high, wheel-chair accessible planter boxes as well as 3 conventional boxes. It also includes a California Native plant garden. The garden boxes are used weekly by special education classes and they have prepared many fine food dishes from the fresh vegetables and fruits grown there. The Ecology Club is also helping to maintain the garden. A “Shady Retreat” garden was completed in November, 2009 by the Alta Vista High masonry and construction class and features a semicircular seating wall and California native shade plants.