Yesterday, I had a chance to visit the amazing schoolyard garden run by PACT. It is a huge (and growing) garden on the northwest part of the John Polanyi Collegiate property, near Bathurst and Lawrence in Toronto. Even as the garden winds down for the winter, the work put into the garden and the output are impressive.

Adam Dirks gave me a tour of the vegetable plots, the chicken house, the learning area and the compost facilities.  Teachers at John Polanyi bring their classes out to work in the garden, cook, study nutrition, plan marketing, run markets, design community outreach, and sometimes just to use the space as a thoughtful place to be and learn. Students from many elementary schools also visit the garden regularly, and the programs are designed to help students learn with all their senses, which gives them a powerful, positive and long-lasting learning experience about food, ecology and the outdoors.

The Chawkers Foundation helped to fund the development of more classroom materials for high school and middle school.

To find out more about PACT’s many other programs and their other 4 beautiful gardens, go to their website at http://pactprogram.ca/ .