Garden + Grow is an after-school gardening program for students at Ashland Elementary School in North St. Louis. The goals of the program include teaching students about how their food is grown and how to make nutritious choices, establishing a sense of capability and autonomy within the students, and providing the opportunity for safe outdoor recreation. Our program is centered on weekly meetings with students in grades Kindergarten through 6th grade. Students helped plan, decorate, plant, and maintain two raised garden beds on the schools property each week. The students receive informal lessons on the life cycle of plants, how to care for a garden, and recipes for cooking fruits and vegetables.

The group would like to thank their faculty sponsor Dr. Lauren Arnold and Josh Goldman for their support of this project.