Across the street from Loyola Academy, at 3434 Illinois Rd, sit over twenty new garden beds ready to be used.
This project was started by the Honors Environmental Science Service Learning classes at Loyola as part of their service to the community and senior capstone project.
Service Learning classes at Loyola are focused on taking what they learn in the classroom and using it to make an impact outside of the classroom. So, the environmental science class learns about how to better our environment, and then goes out and actually makes it better.
Last year’s class started to conceptualize a garden on Loyola’s campus that would be run by students and bring together the community.
This year, the students broke ground on the garden and are bringing it to life.
They began working on this project in the fall, starting by measuring out dimensions for garden beds and preparing the land to be used.
Once the twenty-six garden beds were installed, the students began planting flowers and garlic during class periods.
“Service Learning Environmental Science is so much fun because we get to learn about planting and then we get to go outside and actually plant,” senior Allie Powers said.
The class then let the garden rest in the winter as they focused on learning about other topics such as pollution and composting and worked on adding a hydroponics unit to their classroom.
All Service Learning classes at Loyola do an end of the year project related to their service that they present during a week of symposiums.
For Honors Environmental Science, they began this project all the way back in February, as a capstone project. Groups of students were assigned different places around Loyola that could use improvement in relation to the environment. At their symposium, all the groups will be presenting on what they did for their capstone and what changes they implemented.
Many groups’ capstones related to the garden at 3434 Illinois Rd.
Seniors Brandon Matejka, Kevin Sicena, and Diego Fernandez set up a system to collect rainfall and deliver it to the garden, seniors Avery Pawczuk and Sarah Wild made a handbook of rules, and seniors Brynn Ryan, Margaret O’Dwyer, and Morgan Brown did research on the best seeds to grow in the garden.
Seniors Katie Krug, Kiki Calk, and Lily Shea are working on turning the garden into a community garden. The title community garden means that the garden is not run solely by one person or group, but by a bunch of different collaborators. They have worked with multiple Loyola groups such as SAVE club, Women in Stem, and the football team to get the entire community involved.
“It has been so cool to see everyone at Loyola come together and want to be a part of this garden,” Krug said.
The students will be presenting their projects on May 1st, 2025 from 2:00-3:00 in the Marillac Room. Anyone is welcome to come and see their hard work.
Additionally, throughout the rest of the school year, they will be hosting different volunteer opportunities at the garden to help with transporting soil and planting seeds.
To keep updated on these events, learn more about the garden, and follow the progress of future students, head over to the website created by seniors Allie Powers and Meredith Duryea as their capstone project: https://3434illinois.weebly.com/
