Design Ignites Change - Projects

This project developed by Team Garden, is one of six from the "stART now: change is central" mentoring program that unites Central High students and the University of Tennessee Design students in Knoxville, TN. Where does our food come from? How is it grown? What are we actually eating? These are questions most adults cannot answer with any certainty. Slowly, we have become disconnected from the land. To combat this growing detachment from the land, University of Tennessee design students teamed up with Central High art students to create an organic garden at the High school.

Deborah Shmerler
The School of Art
dshmerle@utk.edu
865 974 3203

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October 5, 2009

The Garden plot has been built and a variety of vegetables have been planted. Ultimately our goal is to see vegetables from the garden be used to prepare healthy lunches for students and faculty.

In the future, a report about the gardens effectiveness will be written, along with proposals for a school wide charrette dealing with our connections to the earth.

Where do we get the materials and money from to build the garden, let alone someone who will be the caretaker after the students who built it, graduate? In other words, how do we make it sustainable? Also, what are ways to promote the garden, and more importantly, our connection to the land, so that the entire student body can benefit?

Teaming up a landscape architecture class at Central High School directed by Paul Dickerson and Peggy Lelands art class, led to a nice collaboration. A small grant, awarded by “The Tennessee Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom”, helped to pay for the materials and seeds. A charrette proposal is in the works for a school-wide project focused on health.

Seeds Of Time

University of Tennessee

Central High School

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