OASES ( Outdoor Agricultural Student Environmental Station )
| The gardens at OASES started six years ago on a 1/8 of an acre of land next to a pond on The Oakwood Campus. Since that time we have developed raised garden beds, built a greenhouse, added chickens and ducks to the mini farms ( and built the chicken house, duck pond and enclosure and a storage barn to accommodate everyone ). The purpose of OASES is to teach our students about plants, how agriculture is a unique environmental setting, scale and concerns about agricultural methods including pesticide and run off from fertilizer, nutrition and the animals like the field mice and.snakes that also come to occupy space with us. In addition to the 150+ student who visit the OASES on a regular school day when it is not raining or snowing, we have a special summer program. The Horizons at Oakwood program invites children from our less prosperous portions of the city and county to attend a summer school. The focus of the Horizons program is to encourage the academic skills of the students not to deteriorate over the summer ; however, the OASES is always a welcome break for the summer campers. The crops raised in our raised beds are also offered to these campers to take home to their supper table and the skills needed to be a gardener are highlighted among their more traditional academic skills. |
