Since its inception, the Blooming Heights Edible Schoolyard & Outdoor Classroom has offered unique programming within Columbia Heights Public Schools. 

The intentionality of the Blooming Heights mission and guiding principles have allowed the program to refine its assessments to align with these values and to measure program outcomes more deliberately. Blooming Heights stands out as an example of the kind of innovative programming made possible with the support of administrators, teachers, families, students and School Board members.

MISSION
Blooming Heights is a Columbia Heights Public Schools program that uses school garden and nutrition programming to facilitate equitable experiences that engage all the senses, while building the skills and knowledge necessary for cultivating a healthy life and planet.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

• We are committed to hands-on teaching and learning that highlights beauty, wonder and joy, and encourages positive risk taking.
• We facilitate interactions with the natural world that value both individuality and mutuality.
• We provide professional development and support to educators involved in experiential education.
• We conduct practice-based nutrition curriculum built on the belief that healthy food should taste good and connect eaters to the earth.
• We teach garden skills and knowledge as a lifelong means for self-advocacy and independence.
• We seek to center marginalized voices and to elevate leadership from all members of our community.
• We provide opportunities for personal and cultural connection with the land.
• We believe learning should feel relevant and urgent, inspiring questioning and curiosity.
• We offer multi-age and multi-discipline learning experiences that utilize techniques such as Social Emotional Learning and mindfulness as well as academic content.

About the Garden
Blooming Heights Edible Schoolyard is located behind the Columbia Heights District Center, between the High School and the Family Center, 1440 49th Ave. NE, Columbia Heights. Blooming Heights is within short walking distance from Highland and Valley View elementary schools and Columbia Academy.

What do we grow?
We have both ground level garden beds and a number of raised beds for vegetables, fruits, flowers and herbs. In addition to the wide variety of annual vegetables we also grow many perennial fruits: raspberries, strawberries, hardy kiwi, juneberries, honeyberries, gooseberries and currants. There is a small orchard with apple, pear, cherry and plum trees, as well as a pergola with hardy grapevines. We also maintain a pollinator garden filled with native wildflowers and tend a small rain garden.

Who uses the garden?
Programming at Blooming Heights includes learners from all ages from the Early Childhood Family Education program to students in grades K-12 and extending into adult enrichment classes. Students in our district start seeds in early spring using grow labs in their classrooms and transplant the seedlings outdoors before the end of the school year.

Student involvement is integral to the upkeep of the garden and they help with planting, weeding, watering, and harvesting. During the summer, our High School Summer Assistants take most of the responsibility for tending the garden. In addition to planting, watering and weeding, and they harvest fruits and vegetables for weekly cooking lessons. Any produce that is not used for cooking is preserved for use by the Family and Consumer Science (FACS) classes during the school year or donated to the local food shelf.

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In 2015, the Blooming Heights program was awarded a grant from the Whole Kids Foundation, which is being used to expand garden beds for more space for classes to use for planting and harvesting, and to increase the amount of food that our program donates to the local food shelf SACA. The grant will also be used for purchasing tools and supplies that will allow more students to be engaged in garden programming.

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