Learning the importance of a garden GRANBY — Students at Granby Elementary School are growing a garden just outside of the school’s gymnasium and learning a lot about the process. “Our students have been working on a garden since early September, this is our first time doing this as part of our Patriot Pride group,” Granby teacher JoAna Abruzzo said. “It is lettuce, we have two different types of lettuce we are growing: Salad bowl lettuce and Bibb lettuce. We are pretty excited to see this happening in our school district and have a garden. We have plans in the spring to extend it so that we can plant more items. We are hoping to be able to sell them to a farmer’s market.” The group of students are comprised of students in the school’s junior high school. Abruzzo said that she has a group of 10 students, while the Patriot Pride group has actually about 20 students. “We rotate them out to do other things to help with our community and help with our school,” she said. “We rotate about every four weeks.” The funding for this project came from a couple of places: Through the University of Missouri Extension Office and with the Newton County Health Department. “We offer curriculum, it is called ‘Eating from the Garden,’ Granby Elementary School has allowed me to come in and do gardening lessons with the kids,” said Julie Graue, with the Extension Office. “I think that it is very important that they know where food comes from. “We have a budget that allows me to help (supply) supplies, seeds and we also rely a lot on the community for donations.” Rene Bohns, with the health department, brought a car load of donations. “We actually have a grant through the state it is called ‘Healthy Eating, Active Learning Grant’ and one of our strategies is actually try to talk to different schools and preschools try to talk to them starting gardens as class projects,” Bohns said. “Through this grant, I can provide different gardening tools, supplies they need: Shovels, gloves and hand tools.” The students put a lot of hard work into the garden. Seventh grader Ethan Thomas was one of the students who have seen it from the start to the present day. “It was OK (working in the garden), we are just now waiting for it (lettuce) to grow bigger so that we can eat it,” said Thomas. “I like lettuce.” He said that he hopes do a garden at his home. “I am hoping to do that this summer. I just want to grow food and it is kind of fun planting gardens,” Thomas said. “You have a responsibility every day.” His responsibility was to make sure to water the garden and also pull the weeds. Kaitlyn Hawkins noted that she too waters the garden and also planting of the seeds. “You have to have to get all of the plants watered,” she said. It was her first time on having a garden. Asked how beneficial it was to have a garden, she said very beneficial. “Because what if the stores ran out of food, you would like to have to build your own stuff that you can eat,” Hawkins said. Abruzzo is pleased with the students and their participation with the garden. “Surprising some of the kids that we had really know more about gardens than I do,” the teacher said. “They were telling me how to do this. Some of them – even in this locally farming area – they don’t know much about gardening, so it gives them that hands on skill. It provides them an idea of, ‘hey, this is a finished product, I grew this myself.’” cutlines:::::Granby students stand - along with their teacher, JoAna Abruzzo (far left), Rene Bohns, with the Newton County Health Department (second from far right) and Julie Graue, with the University of Missouri Extension Office (far right) — behind their garden at the school. The students have been growing lettuce since September. They water the crop, weed the crop and take care of the garden. daily news/todd g. higdon photo 2::::Granby students Kaitlyn Hawkins (pours water), as Ethan Thomas prepares to use a small shovel in the students’ garden, which junior high school students have been working on since September. daily news/todd g. higdon
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 11:56:19 +0000
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