The Problem
The problem we (adults) have identified is a general lack of knowledge among children about where our food comes from and how it is harvested. Our wish for this project is that students better learn where their food comes from. Throughout the year, the students of Sprouts Club will be harvesting and maintaining the Rolling Ridge edible gardens and learning more about the environment they work in.
In the Fall of 2017, we hope to teach the children the importance of the soil in food production.
In the Spring of 2018, the focus will be on the learning the importance of the seed in food production.
We hope to present Roots and Shoots Campaigns in the form of posters at the end of Spring 2018.
Our Plan
Sprouts club members will be planting, caring for and harvesting fruits and vegetables from our garden from spring 2016- until Spring 2018.
In the process, they will learn what produce is available at what time of the year and how specific edible and pollinator plants grow. They will also learn the needs of plants and how they are not isolated but are a part of a complex system that is relatively easy to maintain.
FIRST-DAY of SPROUTS 2017-2018
We are now in the fall school year 2017-2018 and we have harvested several crops from the student garden beds.
Wednesday, Sept 6, was the first day of our Sprouts Club. We met at Mrs. Kelly Anderson's 5th-grade classroom after school and discovered a new healthy snack: figs!
The scraps from our snacks were collected and used to feed red wriggler worms in our worm tower. This way, nothing was wasted!
Students, teachers, and parents harvested tomatoes, long beans, green beans and basil. They even braved the rain to do it!
Another group of students created signs to label the garden beds with, thanks to a project of an Eagle Scout candidate and an assistant teacher, Mrs. Angela Gomez.
A final group of students looked at an initial map of the garden beds and identified what was in the garden. This was their orientation to mapping.
All students used old student notebooks whose pages were still unused. That way, we saved on trees and money! At the end of the day, we took a closer look at the produce we harvested and sketched them (and the worms) in our notebooks.
It was a busy first day!
