Environmental and sustainability education is an important part of the curriculum at OISE. So, it seemed like a perfect fit when Furqan Mohamed, a student in the Master of Arts in Child Study & Education (MA CSE) program at OISE’s Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study, (JICS) asked to bring a group of 21 Grade One students to visit the OISE Library’s Seed Library this November.
The OISE Library opened its branch of the Toronto Seed Library back in the summer of 2014. For the past 10 years, the Seed Library has been an OISE community favourite, frequented by students, faculty, and staff alike. The Seed Library is housed in a re-purposed card catalogue in a cozy corner of the ground floor and stocked regularly with a variety of organic seeds and native species.
The Grade One trip was organized by Teacher Candidate Furqan Mohamed, with the support of Associate Teachers Erika Stein and Jessica Haber. As Furqan explained, the Grade One class was “exploring decomposition, mushrooms and fungi, and the life cycle of plants. We harvested seeds from various plants a little while back and are hoping to walk over to the library as a fun, interesting field trip, donate our seeds, and learn a little more about the Seed Library, perhaps taking some to plant in our class.”
The field trip was a success all around!
The Grade One students were excited to select seeds to take back to their classroom and proud to share their seeds with the library. The students also spent some time looking at the growing tower and leafing through a selection of storybooks from our Children’s Literature Collection about gardens, bees, and mushrooms. After the event Furqan noted, “what a special spot in the library! It was a wonderful experience, and students truly enjoyed themselves, as did the grown-ups".
The Seed Library is closely aligned with other initiatives such as Dr. Hilary Inwood’s 
growing tower (located near the Seed Library), that support the curriculum at OISE and provide opportunities for teacher candidates to see examples of what they might do in their future K-12 classrooms.
Curious about how you can make use of the seed library? Simply come into the OISE Library and look for the card catalog full of seeds on the ground floor. Browse the seed collection to find something tasty and/or beautiful and take it home. As always, seeds are free.
Find out more about the Toronto Seed Library organization here: https://torontoseedlibrary.org/