Spring Planting and Beautification Day
The University Elementary School is thankful for its community supporters in helping tackle challenges that we face. With the support of Lowe’s Toolbox for Education, we were able to tackle two issues.
Our students are at a much higher risk for child obesity based on demographics and baseline data. Our school has very limited space for physical activity, and our students often do not have access to gardens at home in order to grow and eat healthy foods. Physical health can directly affect children’s capacity for learning.
Because UT Elementary School is housed in temporary portable buildings and we receive no facilities funding from the state, the aesthetic appeal of our surroundings was limited. We feel it is important to create an atmosphere in which our students look forward to coming to class and learning. Parent Forum volunteers want to be more involved in their children’s education, and strengthening the relationship between parents and teachers by improving the school will help accomplish this.
The Lowe’s Toolbox for Education grant program is generously supporting this year’s efforts in our spring planting and beautification project. The mission of these projects are two-fold: (1) to improve the level of enthusiasm for learning by creating a healthy learning environment (physical and mental) for our young students, and (2) to strengthen the partnership between students’ families and the school in order to help students achieve their best.
Spring Planting helps our children to learn about living healthy through eating right and exercising. Good health is essential to the capacity for students to concentrate and learn. The spring planting shows our students that cultivating and eating healthy foods such as peas, green beans, tomatoes, etc. will promote a healthy diet. The running track will give our students the ability to have physical activity every day. The school used materials purchased from Lowe’s to till and prepare the garden, plant the seeds, and cultivate the plants for harvest. Each classroom has their own garden bed that they are responsible for maintaining. The students have been very excited to participate in the choosing of which vegetables and plants to grow and why. The school will use the decomposed granite to lay the running track for physical activity time.
Members of the Parent Forum, students, and school administrators and teachers came together on Saturday, April 4, for Spring Beautification Day. In the front of our building, we planted large crepe myrtle trees and installed lighting posts. Our Parent Forum often holds events the evenings, and having sufficient lighting for these events will be a tremendous benefit. We installed an outdoor fountain on the back deck. On the awnings between the portable buildings, we installed brackets and hanging fern baskets. On the back decks, we placed seating benches between each classroom and potted plants and welcome mats outside each classroom door. The plants both provide aesthetic appeal and teach the students responsibility- every grade is responsible for the care of their own plants.
UT Elementary is very grateful to Lowe’s employees for their help with this project. Thank you to Lowe’s Toolbox for Education for making these projects possible, and for contributing to a healthy learning environment and strengthening family partnerships with our school!
