WELCOME TO THE UELF GARDEN!
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Hello Garden Friends
You have found the online home for the outdoor classroom at University Elementary at La Fiesta. Welcome to our garden.
The garden invites us to explore science, math, language arts, culture, history, the arts, and more. Through learning about plants, animals, and nature's cycles, our students gain an understanding of the world around them.
Our history
The UELF Garden was founded in 2017 by a group of parent volunteers, led by Shannon Weese, Garden Committee president; our first garden teacher, Alisa Norstrom; and our former school principal, Charlotte Straub. Over the years the garden program has developed into a weekly classes at every grade level and includes hands on learning in the garden. Lessons are designed to meet Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and support the learning done in the classroom.
In addition to our fruit and vegetable garden, UELF has a habitat garden to support local wildlife. This was a multi-year project with students performing the research to determine soil composition, slope, and area studies to determine which local, native animals would be best supported in our environment. Each class selected an animal to learn about, worked through what those animals need in their habitats (food, water, shelter, warmth), and planned how to meet these needs for their animal. Our habitat garden project was supported by the School Garden Network.
Kindergartners show off the strawberries they harvested from the garden.
Distance Learning
During distance learning, our students continued to enjoy weekly garden lessons that include video tours of the garden as well as hands on activities they complete at home. Lessons were provided to each class through their primary classroom teacher in Google Classroom and/or Seesaw. Student feedback was gathered by garden teacher Sandra Knoy via Google Forms, and data was gathered and presented in a variety of formats such as Word Clouds, graphs, and other products.
About our Garden Educator
A little about me:
CA AEOE Environmental Educator student for 21/22
UELF parent since 2013
CRPUSD Substitute Teacher since 2016
UELF staff member since 2018
Married with two children, one in 10th and one in 6th
Five cats: Holly and Hazel (12), Bridget (4), Tipsy and Callie (2)
Hobbies: Studying medieval history, reading British literature, hiking, camping, sewing, and gardening.
Girl Scout leader
Stay in touch
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