Last year, Ms. Davis and her class received an award from KC Healthy Kids and Kansas City Community Gardens to help improve our community. Our scholars decided to build garden beds for our school garden and plant fruits and vegetables. While building the beds and planting our crops, we talked about how our surroundings impact our health, how they as young people, can be advocates in their community to make change in something they believe in, and knowledge about how to grow and care for fruit and vegetables.

This project is one example of how we teach an integrated curriculum at AFIA. This project covers science, social studies, literacy and math content and includes active movement all while learning about the importance of a healthy community. When our scholars learn about a topic, and put what they learned into practice, we believe they are engaging more deeply because they are connected to the content. Our gardens are visual representations of their work, also highlighting our belief that showing results fosters pride in our learning.