As a former Enota Elementary teacher and Gainesville resident having taught young children for 42 years, I know the value of hands-on, real life activities to enhance learning. I sought to instill awe and wonder for the natural world and strived to get my students outside to explore nature while teaching at Enota. I helped create garden plots for my students and enjoyed having access to the nearby woods where my class could explore.

I remember one particularly magical day in which my students saw three wild turkeys running on our playground and a delicate luna moth clinging to an exterior brick wall. We were amazed and delighted!

There is nothing to compare to firsthand learning. Spaces like the Smartville Garden allow for both serendipitous teachable moments like we had and planned learning activities (STEM).

Since my teaching years at Enota, the Smartville Garden has been established and developed by the generosity and creativity of neighborhood volunteers. It serves as a wonderful environment that extends teaching and learning beyond classroom walls. This project has grown over eight years to become a rich outdoor classroom, complete with a rainwater storage and disbursement system that has handled stormwater runoff and directed water back into the ground without using any city water.

Through volunteer planning, labor and resources, the Smartville Garden has become an example of what is possible when dedicated community volunteers work together for a worthy goal.

Students enjoy the garden on a daily basis, learn about ecology and conservation, and have hands-on learning opportunities that would not be possible otherwise. A wide selection of plants and trees have been planted and nurtured. The level of community involvement in the garden is something in which we can all take pride. It is a demonstration of a commitment to teaching our students to respect and revere our earth, truly a way to inspire them to become stewards of our natural world.

I am dismayed to learn construction plans call for destruction of this garden treasure, and paving it over for a parking lot. What message does this send to our children? They are future citizens who will have to develop an awareness and sensitivity to environmental issues as the increasing loss of green space and other ecological concerns. The world will look to them to protect the earth for future generations.

The Enota campus is not just any piece of land; it has been loved and cared for and grown into something exceptional, .a learning resource and point of community pride that draws us all into a greater sense of community. This garden deserves to be honored and incorporated into any future plan for the new Enota school. I respectfully ask that more time be spent toward working out a plan that will make us all proud. Our children deserve it.

Gail Sargent
Gainesville

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