Spiritual Formation: Service Learning, TLC, Wildcat Gardeners

Service Learning

Regular and meaningful service activity in our local and global community is intended to develop a lifelong habit of the heart in our students. To this end, each grade-level is partnered with a community organization whose mission and services are related to curriculum goals. Our students address real community needs in ways that are connected to and informed by their classroom learning. Year-long partnerships create the possibility of relationship formation that transforms charity into mutual service among neighbors. To do logistical planning, and to facilitate the integration of service and curriculum, each grade-level has a “Service Learning Team,” which includes faculty and students from the grade-level, a parent, a representative from the partner organization and one of the school chaplains. Most grade-levels also depend on other parents to help with travel, supplies and other practical matters. In addition to the grade-level Service Learning, there are also, from time to time, school-wide outreach or service projects [see page 77 in the appendix].

Trinity Loves and Cares (a.k.a. - TLC)

The chaplain’s ministry extends beyond the student in order to include the whole family. In case there is a crisis or pastoral need, we have parents who provide meals, transportation or any other forms of support that our community can offer to meet your need. At Trinity, it is our goal to be a compassionate community that responds to illness and other times of distress and need in appropriate ways. Please contact the chaplain if you know of a situation or need in our community that might call for a response.

 

Wildcat Gardeners

Trinity’s garden program is an important part of the Trinity curriculum in nearly every discipline at all grade-levels. Students turn to the Trinity gardens for projects relating to math, social studies, science, written expression and art, to name a few. As part of the development of the whole child, the garden program also helps us teach interdependence and personal accountability, engages students in activities that require cooperation and vital interplays among their peers and imparts important life skills such as integrity, dependability, planning, nurture, initiative and the value of hard work. Trinity’s garden program encourages students to expand their appreciation for the living world and provides an opportunity for them to develop an understanding of the need to nurture life and establish community relationships.

 

History

The garden program at Trinity began in our very first year when a fifth-grade faculty member created a harvest festival. Several of those fifth-graders, our first Trinity gardeners, planted our courtyard gardens. Trinity’s garden program has grown rapidly over the past few years. In addition to being a dynamic teaching tool which links and enhances various studies, we discovered that the garden program was an important connection to the community. The Wildcat Gardeners program partners with such community organizations as the Arts & Sciences Council, Adopt-A-Stream, Winghaven, The McGill Rose Garden, Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden and others. 

 

The Learning Link

At Trinity, learning spills out of the building and into the natural world where every student is a Wildcat Gardener.  

• Kindergartners grow vegetables then count and weigh them as part of their math program before donating them to local hunger coalitions. We always end up with a tasty harvest!
• First- and second-grade students tend to our courtyard gardens, hummingbird/butterfly gardens and maintain bird feeding stations to study local birdlife as part of their science studies. 
• Third-grade students study hummingbird migration as part of their science and social studies curriculum. They also plant tulip bulbs (using their rulers as a depth guide, of course!), as part of a cooperative project with students all over the world to determine when soil temperatures are warm enough to spark the growth of the tulip. 
• Fourth-grade students will recreate and study the Piedmont Prairie, an endangered ecosystem. What better way to learn about North Carolina’s ecological communities than to create one! 
• Fifth-grade students place a special emphasis on ecology and conservation of our natural resources.
• Middle school students participate in an ongoing project to create a marshland habitat as part of their earth science studies.
• How about an outdoor science laboratory right on Trinity’s campus? Middle school students are busy turning a portion of the Trinity campus into the Trinity Rain Garden. As rainwater lands on asphalt, buildings and other vegetation, it collects pesticides, fuels and other chemicals, eventually carrying them into our community’s creeks and streams as runoff. The Trinity Rain Garden is designed to collect and filter this runoff from our parking lot and other areas, filter and remove the pollutants and then feed the marshland habitat below before the water eventually reaches the Little Sugar Creek Greenway. Students will learn about stewardship of our environment, water quality, the hydrodynamics of flowing water and earth materials, as well as soil and mineral elements and their interaction with the water molecule.
• Students at all grade-levels have contributed to the major achievement of Trinity’s certification by the National Wildlife Federation as a “Schoolyard Habitat.”

 

 

 

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