Academic Programs

Learning Gardens Laboratory

Overview

The Learning Gardens Laboratory (LGLab) is a roughly 11-acre parcel of public land located in SE Portland, Oregon that is part community garden, part garden-based education, and more. The garden incorporates "permaculture" or permanent agriculture which is a more earth-friendly and sustainable means of growing food.

The LGLab is primarily geared to serve the students and families of the multicultural and lower income SE Portland neighborhoods that the garden calls home. LGLab's primary Portland Public Schools partner is Lane Middle School which is just down the street from the learning garden. The garden aims to provide a hands-on and enriching learning environment for students and volunteers alike.

The Learning Gardens Lab was established in 2005 through a partnership of Portland State University, Portland Public Schools (PPS), and the City of Portland. It is a project of the Portland International Initiative for Leadership in Ecology Culture and Learning (PIIECL) in Portland State University’s Educational Policies, Foundations, and Administration (EPFA) Department in the Graduate School of Education.

Goals

When the Learning Gardens Laboratory project began in the fall of 2005, its goals were defined as follows:

To create an educational laboratory resource that will give students and youth in Portland hands-on multicultural, interdisciplinary, intergenerational, and multi-sensory experiences that promote earth-friendly local food production and improve student learning.
To educate students about permaculture principles and earth-friendly gardening methods, nutrition and healthy eating habits, and medicinal/healing properties of plants.
To serve as an educational resource for existing learning gardens in Portland Public schools and local farms.
To support the regional food economy by raising awareness of the importance of local agriculture and working with PPS Nutrition Services to bring LGLab harvests into schools.
To facilitate the creation of an intergenerational learning community where PSU graduate students, PPS students, and parents from multicultural communities in Southeast Portland can work collaboratively.
To close the achievement gap and increase academic achievement, develop personal efficacy, stimulate motivation to learn, and help foster a sense of purpose and sense of place.
To become a national model that extends beyond food production to teaching children and youth and increasing their academic achievement.