Study Hall

Whether there are kids on the grounds or not, Edible Schoolyard keeps growing

By Ema Sasic

Buena Vista Edible Schoolyard Program Manager Dylan Wilson showcases some of the plants starting to grow in the greenhouse.

The Buena Vista Edible Schoolyard grows about 60 varieties of vegetables each year.

CLASSROOMS AND SCHOOL HALLWAYS HAVE BEEN QUIET THE LAST FEW MONTHS, MISSING THE YOUNG MINDS THAT MAKE THEM FLOURISH.

But for at least one educational setting in Kern County, growing has continued to take place.

The Buena Vista Edible Schoolyard, a collaborative effort between the Grimm Family Education Foundation and the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District, is a garden oasis for students with green thumbs. During a normal school year, some 1,000 students from Buena Vista Elementary participate in hands-on, 90-minute garden and kitchen lessons where they learn the seed to table process.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, teaching students has had to undergo some changes, explained Dylan Wilson, program manager. But the core mission — encouraging students to have a positive relationship with food — has stayed the same.

When school shutdowns began in mid-March, Wilson said, Edible Schoolyard turned into a small farm. With around 60 varieties of vegetables grown each year, it was a fairly seamless transition to make. All that food went directly to the community.

“Since we didn’t have students and the food wasn’t going toward lessons, we began donating produce to the Cal State (Bakersfield) Food Pantry,” he explained. More than 3,000 pounds of produce have been donated.

In late June, the garden received the green light to welcome students back on campus. Since then, small cohorts of students at a time have participated in seasonal camps.

Wilson explained students in the fall camp met once a week for eight weeks and received four garden and four kitchen lessons. There were 12 students per cohort, and in total Edible Schoolyard saw 72 children.

“We found that a lot of our students and their knowledge of food systems increased over that eight-week period,” he said. He added parents were ready for their children to be out of the home and looking at something other than an electronic device, so experiential learning was a necessity.

Similar to how the program runs during a normal school year, students got a first-hand look at how the fruits and vegetables they eat end up on their kitchen tables. Animal and plant lifecycles, composting, garden tool handling and more are covered in the garden portion, while in the kitchen students learn how to handle various tools, such as knives and measuring cups, until they’re ready to tackle recipes.

Camps are open to all students, no matter if they attend a private, public or homeschool setting. Various COVID-19 health protocols, such as mask wearing, social distancing and temperature checks, are in place. Edible Schoolyard’s winter camp will run Jan. 11 to March 5.

There were challenges along the way, such as socially distancing young children, who want to be around friends, from each other, acknowledged Wilson, but smaller class sizes and more individualized attention on students allowed for “the interaction between the students and teacher (to be) higher,” leading to more engagement and grasping of concepts.

Outside of the camps, Edible Schoolyard, through a grant from Dignity Health, has hosted webinars aimed at parents and helping them create healthy meals for their families. Through a partnership with Adventist Health and KGET, the schoolyard also shares healthy recipes with the community every Wednesday on 17 News at Sunrise.

The garden even makes its own extra virgin olive oil. In 2012, mature olive trees were transplanted from Woodlake, and today around 350 trees surround the area. Each year Darcy Marshall harvests and presses the olives that are hand-picked. The result is a peppery and authentic Buena Vista Extra Virgin Olive Oil that has taken first place at the Kern County Fair since 2015.

The olive oil can be purchased at Lassen’s Natural Foods and Vitamins and Williams Sonoma, and all proceeds go back to the Edible Schoolyard.