By Colleen Flanagan, Maple Ridge – Pitt Meadows News
While students across the district are looking forward to their summer vacation after being let out of school on Thursday, June 28, students at one school in Maple Ridge will have a new reason to look forward to the new school year in September.
A new outdoor garden for learning was just completed at Maple Ridge Elementary and will be used by students as an outdoor learning space where they will gain an understanding of where their food comes from, and how they can even grow food themselves at home in pots.
Teacher Kyleigh Keats was behind the new garden because she has always enjoyed gardening with her students and the former garden was 10 years old and falling apart. However, she was jolted into action after a question from one student at the school who saw lettuce growing in one of the old beds.
The student asked her if this was where Caesar salad comes from.
“They were, like, shocked,” she said, because, some children only see it in packages at the grocery store.
So, Keats decided to apply for a grant through the Ridge Meadows Education Society in February this year and received $1,500 to put toward the new garden beds.