Seeds for Schools Winner #7 - Almaden Country School

Almaden Country School
San Jose, CA
# of Students: 420

San Jose, CA is represented for the second time in our Seeds for School program this year with Pre K through 8th grade recipient, Almaden Country School.

Barbara DeMoss, fairly new to the school, is the science teacher and resident gardener as well as the submitter of Almaden’s application to our porgram. Almaden, boasts a garden 60 feet by 100 feet and Ms. DeMoss’s plan is to incorporate the garden into the science department and make it an outdoor classroom.

“This fall the children and I weeded and planted pumpkins, watermelons, beans, carrots and radishes,” said Ms. DeMoss. “We have lots of plans for the spring.”

Ms. DeMoss’s plan for the seeds is to expand their school’s garden and use that as a teaching tool to connect the students to the outdoors through science class and lunchtime learning programs.

Seeds for Schools: Winner #5 - Allen at Steinbeck K - 8

Allen at Steinbeck K through 8

San Jose, CA

# of students: 800 to 900

Gardening Program Started: 2006

San Jose is well represented this year in our Seeds for Schools program. Allen at Steinbeck is 1 of 2 schools chosen from the San Jose area (we will talk about the other San Jose winner, later in the week).

Allen at Steinbeck is a large urban area school catering to the Kindergarten through 8th grade student body. Their gardening program was started 6 years ago when they moved into their new building and includes 8 beds where they have been growing plenty of herbs, veggies and pumpkins.

"We work with each grade to get kids into the garden going through the entire planning, weeding and harvesting process," says Shawn Shahin, a teach at the school and submitter (along with Kristen Corpuz) of the application. "The pumpkins we grow are used each year to decorate our school."

Allen at Steinbeck plans on using the seeds they will receive as a means to teach more indoor gardening, starting seeds indoors and of course to get more kids gardening. They would like to use "garden time" as a positive reward for their students.