Student-Centered
Multidisciplinary Hands-on Community Reponsive
With a focus on well-being, curiosity, and creativity, we design and implement project-based curriculum in public schools.
Front cover: Regenerative garden on the Restoration & Wellness campus in the FergusonFlorissant School District.On Tuesday, June 6, I had the incredible experience of sitting down with former Project Lab student Javon Calmese, who has just completed his first year of college. I’m delighted and proud to share that Javon will be interning for Project Lab St. Louis this summer.
Although we’d stayed in touch through email, I hadn’t see Javon for five years, not since he graduated 8th grade from Normandy and moved on to attend high school in a different district.
Javon and I were meeting up with Valaree Logan at the garden on the Restoration & Wellness campus. Although we got right down to business, talking about the summer, and what we’ve got to do before students return in August, I was inwardly blown away by what was happening. Here we were, each of us five years older, but still connected by what Project Lab St. Louis was, and how it all felt, back in the Normandy 7th & 8th Grade Center. Definitely check out Javon’s reflections in the following pages.
Looking back over the last year, I’m astonished at our accomplishments: In collaboration with the district, with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and with Custom Foodscaping, LLC, we established the first garden of the Permaculture Project of Metropolitan St. Louis in the FergusonFlorissant School District. We were so grateful to St. Louis Public Radio for covering our planting day in April!
Champion of this year’s work is Valaree Logan, who joined our team in August as Lead Gardener and School Liaison. Val set up a Project Lab classroom, collaborated with teachers, and establshed positive, nurturing relationships with students.
Months before the first seeds and plants were in the ground, Val wove together her expertise in gardening and her background in school psychology to create meaningful experiences for each and every student.
Eventually, our students will collect and share data on local bumble
continue to steward our resources with care and intention. It was possible this year to shift a portion of our cash position to a secure investment, which will increase the value of your contributions to date. Please see our financial page for details.
Looking ahead, we’re excited to produce a second edition of Living Questions, a project that’s been on temporary hold.
We’ll also be adding even more reading passages to our accessible, open-source collection of contentspecific information texts. To date, we have nearly 240 passages in six different content areas -- World History, U. S. History, Gardening, Biology, Mind/ Body Well-Being, and Earth Science.
bees with scientists at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. In the coming weeks, we’ll be refining our processes and forms for documenting and disseminating what we learn about these pollinators in north St. Louis County. We’re so proud to be contributing to this growing body of national research. I invite you to read Val’s report.
I’d also like to share that we
Thanks to you, our work can continue. Thanks to you, the curriculum we develop and implement remains relevant, rigorous, and engaging. Thanks to you, I remain grateful for the past, joyful in the present, and hopeful about the future.
Warmly, Inda
What a year it has been! I couldn’t be more grateful for the growth, support, and challenges I’ve experienced during this year of launching the regenerative garden at the Restoration and Wellness Center. We started with an idea of what we hoped the garden space would look like and feel like for every student, teacher, administrator, community member, and neighbor who came into the space. With sustained Intention, the program created space and time that centered around student needs and interests.
One of the biggest challenges for me was starting the program months before we actually broke ground on our garden beds. How to ensure that our garden-to-come would be at the center of our activities and lessons? In planning curriculum, we came up with ways students could practice the skills and experiences they’d need to care for a regenerative school garden: mindfulness exercises helped us learn how to be intentionally present; using all five senses outdoors helped us make observations of living and nonliving things; practicing kindness and patience helped us nurture a willingness to try new things; learning how to create time and space away from cell phones helped us focus on one thing at a time.
Thanks to hands-on experiments with microgreens, self-guided painting classes, preparing and eating meals together, starting plants from seed, building and tending a worm compost system, making the garden signs, and so many other projects, we were always preparing for (or responding to) two of the most exciting weeks of the school year: groundbreaking week in the fall and planting time in the spring. One important thing I learned from the students this year was what happens when you remain persistent and resilient throughout the process of learning, and practice something new almost daily. In addition to projects, our class discussions helped us understand more deeply the issues and challenges my students face. What does it mean, I asked them, to be in the here and now, when the here and now is not necessarily where we might want to be?
After winter break, as we began to distance ourselves from our phones and moved toward intentional monotasking, we became producers and not just consumers. Students showed up, and were willing to try growing their own food. As we ebbed and flowed together, they began to understand and practice ways of interacting across our individual differences. This allowed us to work through conflict in more restorative ways. It allowed them to push themselves to set up their own success. Personally, I learned that we learn most when we’re able to use ourselves and the environment around us to teach and grow ourselves and our understanding of our space and time here. Though we experienced some challenging circumstances this year, we pushed through and became gardeners, researchers, and scientists. What students learned within the garden would travel with them beyond the garden.
I use the word “we” because this was not at all possible by my own hands alone. I am grateful for the opportunity to have launched this program, and for everyone at Restoration and Wellness, especially Tim Merritt and Alex Meyer. How we show up and what we do affects us all and the students we serve. We are all growing!
A college sophomore with a 4.0 GPA at North Arkansas College, Javon is especially interested in business, environmental science, journalism, psychology, and computer programming. We’re thrilled that Javon will be returning to Project Lab St. Louis as our first-ever summer intern.
It’s been nearly seven years since I first stepped foot into the now demolished Normandy 7th and 8th Grade Center. The two years I spent there were a transformational period for me. A lot of things I learned I carried over into high school. When I think about 7th and 8th grade, I think about the relationships I had with everyone, from the teachers and staff to my peers. I think about all of the events that I experienced there, from catching sight of the solar eclipse to having detention after school. Most of all, being in Project Lab is almost always what comes to mind when I think of 7th and 8th grade.
The first thing that pops into my mind when I think about Project Lab was the classroom itself. I miss the bean bag, the rectangular tables in the middle of class, the tall green chair, the keyboard, the comedy and tragedy masks, the chess boards. I miss all of it so so much. I still wish that I could walk into that classroom and experience that ambience again.
I loved how different it was from all the other classes. The only thing that made it like other classes is that we followed a curriculum. However, we followed an unconventional curriculum. Instead of sitting and being assigned to do classwork after a lesson, the curriculum was more interactive. The variety of things we did
made for a fruitful and worthwhile time. In addition, the classroom setting was far from the conventional, lined-up seats, facing the teacher. The days I had Project Lab were always exciting.
All of the field trips, guest speakers, and activities we had is what made that class the most exciting. I remember a couple of guest speakers Dr. Schaenen brought in, one of them was a guy I talked to about attending the University of Kentucky. I remember the day Dr. Schaenen brought in kosher food. I also remember we tried challah and that it was very tasty. And that we learned about Jewish culture, practice, and identity. I thought it was all very fascinating. Another time we went to an Islamic school and then they met us at our school. I enjoyed being with the students and learning from them so much. That was my favorite experience. I connected with the students so well. I also remember the field trip where we got to go into the Arch. That was my first and only time there and I’m glad I got to spend it with the class. I remember the field trips we took walking across the street to meet with the police officers for the Day of Dialogue at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. I recall going to the Audubon Center at Riverlands and geocaching.
As far as activities go, there is so much to remember! Yoga and meditation
I miss the bean bag, the rectangular tables in the middle of class, the tall green chair, the keyboard, the comedy & tragedy masks, the chess boards. I still wish that I could walk into that classroom and experience that ambience
is something that I do to this day. Chess is something I most definitely remember and do to this day. I’ve also introduced the game to some friends and family of mine. I still remember the day one of Dr. Schaenen’s children came in – he’s a circus artist and I learned how to juggle. I still do that for fun from time to time. There was also a point when I really wanted to pursue journalism because of The Viking Times, our school newspaper. In high school, I went on to take media literacy and scholastic journalism. I still do love writing, and I can say that definitely stems from my time writing for The Viking Times. During my Spring Semester of college, I had an English composition class, and I always thought back on my writing in middle school and how much I have improved since then. Another activity that I remember was drawing spirals in class. I still do that to this day; it helps a lot with my attention span and being mindful. Random other memories: reciting a poem word for word and practicing writing in cursive!
Becoming a Project Lab intern, I feel very excited for many reasons. Gardening to me is fascinating, and I think this is a great opportunity to learn many valuable lessons and embrace them in another part of my life.
With much love, Javon
again.
–Javon Calmese
Our finances are sound. We’re sound because of the generousity of our donors who’ve continued, throughout the ups and downs of the last few years, to support our program. The landscape of public education can be volatile. When leadership changes, personnel and programming often change too. Since leaving Normandy, we’ve been intentional about what we do and where we do it. Our work in the Ferguson-Florissant School District is promising; it’s possible that we will expand our program there in the future. In the meantime, our prudent approach to expansion has made it possible to temporarily place our surplus cash, roughly $100,000, in a risk-free interest-bearing investment account. In addition to this investment, we have $145,000 in cash on hand. Below is our Profit and Loss Statement for 2022-23.
Having laid the foundations for the Permaculture Project of Metropolitan St. Louis, we’re well prepared to extend the pilot for another year and implement additional humanities projects. As fiscally responsible stewards of our resources, we make sure that our expenditures align with our values. Looking ahead, we know that other schools in Ferguson-Florissant, including McClure High School, would like to participate in the garden project. Another high school in St. Louis Public Schools is also interested. Additional funds would also allow us to increase the number of program facilitators, extend our collaboration with Custom Foodscaping LLC, and offer additional paid internships for former Project Lab students.
Please consider what’s at stake, and give as generously as you can. Contributions come in many sizes – we are grateful for every single one.
More than 90% of our expenses go to studentcentered programming: teachers, books, garden supplies, and garden infrastructure, including worms for vermicomposting.
We’re so grateful to everyone who supported our work during the 2022-23 school year.
For financial support we thank . . .
Karen Benson
Charlie Dee
Jim Giacone & Rodney West
Rosanne Haggerty
Stephen Henderson & James LaForce
Dolli Holland
Missouri Humanities
Kirk Johnson
Sheila Labrecque
Joanne Meyers
Amy McIntosh & Jeffrey Toobin
Laurence Meltzer
Adelle Rathe
Susan Rudin
Wendy Saul
Eve Schaenen
Joephine & Richard Weil
For in-kind support we thank . . .
Dr. Joseph Davis
David Dean
Michael Dee
Carla Easter
Eric Handley
Brittany Kelleher
Matt Lebon
Isaiah Melendez
Paul Merioles
Ralph Ruffin
Tim Merritt
Alexander Meyer
Matt Schindler
Volunteeer Lawyers and Accountants for the Arts
