BEN Expanding Its Horizons Programme
Bermuda Education Network [BEN] announced an expansion of its Horizons Programme – a collaboration with Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute, Kaleidoscope Arts Foundation, The AgraLiving Institute, Carter House and St. George’s Historical Society.
A spokesperson said, “BEN’s Horizons Programme partners share a commitment to putting nature at the heart of learning and a number of new opportunities for public primary schools involving gardening and nature will be announced in the coming year.
Paget Primary’s new garden space:
“The programme has provided public primary schools with field trips for over seven years. In 2024 over 140 expeditions were provided free of charge to public primary schools. The outings included Botanical Gardens and other locations to explore Bermuda’s natural habitats and the programme also offers visits from AgraLiving Institute to help with school gardens.
“The new garden support falls into three categories – garden design support for creating new or enhancing existing school gardens; volunteer community days and gardening activities and lesson plans. The most recent project involved corporate volunteers from SOMPO who assisted with the AgraLiving Institute Education Garden at Botanical Gardens where teachers and students have the opportunity to learn about soil, composting and how to grow healthy plants.”
SOMPO volunteers at the AgraLiving Institute Education Garden:
BEN’s Network Teacher Tiffany Bean said, “The idea is to provide teachers with just enough support to make the option of a gardening lesson really appealing. Teachers are busy, so we can’t expect them to take on garden management on top of everything else.
“The support that AgraLiving can provide is intended to remove any obstacles to making use of the school garden and the new range of lesson plans designed by the BEN team will inspire teachers to give gardening with their students a try.”
Chris Faria, founder of AgraLiving Institute, said, “The new garden at Paget Primary has been a great success story. Paget Primary’s Principal, Sonia Raynor supported our plan to transform an unused space into a vibrant outdoor classroom. We had volunteers from Nature’s Compass, Wilton Re, the Garden Club, the Botanical Society and Bermuda Is Love come to help us to construct the garden in November and the school’s Eco Club are now enjoying the results of that work.
“Agra Living hopes that this will be the first of many school projects with BEN that will help to enhance school sites as well as increase learning about the conservation and environmental stewardship as well as nutrition and food security.”
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