Celebrating National Garden Month: Project Produce Sparks Healthy Changes
The following is excerpted from a Branch Newsletter article by Beth Sellers, a sixth grade science teacher at Glenvar Middle School in Salem, Virginia.
Project Produce is well into its second full year at Glenvar Middle School in Salem, Virginia, and has been growing by leaps and bounds, in major part due to the funding provided by a PLT GreenWorks! grant.
After creating four raised-bed gardens during the 2008-2009 school year as a method of engaging a class of 16 high-risk students, it has grown to include 120 sixth graders during the 2009-2010 school year, and 140 sixth graders during the 2010-2011 school year. These students are not only excited about growing vegetables–-they are eating healthy!
The students researched recipes in the school’s computer lab and voted on their favorites. During the fall, we cooked almost every Friday in the classroom using an electric skillet. By Christmas, the sixth grade students had accumulated enough recipes to create their own cookbook for parents as a gift. Among the students favorite recipes are “Hot Chinese Cabbage,” “Raddish Top Soup,” and “Mustard Greens Fried Rice.”
I used the National Gardening Association’s guide “Health and Nutrition from the Garden” to give me more ideas to help my students implement healthy life-style changes. As the students began to appreciate the food they were growing and eating, they were ripe for expanding the gardening experience into their own homes.
Students selected plants for their home gardens during the summer, and in February 2010 we began planting seeds for seedlings to go home with each student. Students planted the seeds in the classroom and grew over 300 seedlings to transplanting size.
The Glenvar gardens were planted with salad vegetables, and the students learned not only how to grow and take care of them, but they also practiced scientific investigation. When school came to an end, at least two plants went home with each student and we harvested enough salad greens to feed every sixth grader all the salad they could eat during the exam period break. The students left school confident in their ability to grow and cook their own food.
Our GreenWorks! project lives on and continues to grow. Before the year was out, the wall-to-wall seedlings in every window and under every light in my classroom highlighted the need for expansion.
Continue reading Beth's article in PLT's The Branch Newsletter...
Photos credit: Beth Sellers
