Students from Auburn Mountainview High School and Arthur Jacobsen Elementary came together to reap the crops they sowed.
Students combined efforts to harvest, prepare and eat salad greens they planted earlier this spring. In doing so, the students shared the knowledge and rewards of growing healthy vegetables.
The first phase of the project included planting a salad garden in pots in the high school’s greenhouse. Peas, potatoes, squash, pumpkins and broccoli were planted in the land lab garden beds. Students also explored the “worm bin,” created a plant parts collage and completed activities on their classroom experiments.
On their first visit, 60 first-graders were paired with high school students from Regina Grubb’s horticulture science class at the high school.
The second phase led to the harvesting, preparing and eating the salad greens the students had planted on their first visit.
The first-graders were paired up again with their high school helpers to harvest in the greenhouse, then moved to Vivian Baglien’s nutrition and wellness class to prepare salads. The high school students then served the salad to the first-graders in the high school commons.
As Grubb summed up: “It is my hope that we will continue and expand activities like this to help students understand where food really comes from, provide opportunities to integrate curriculum across subject areas and grade levels, and create garden experiences that reinforce the classroom curriculum.”
The teachers are looking forward to bringing the next class of first-graders in the fall to harvest the potatoes, pumpkins and squash.
ALSO: Lakeland Hills Elementary students recycled enough plastic bags to win third place in Wal-Mart’s Kids Recycling Challenge for the state, earning $2,710 and an additional $1,000 for being the third-place winner.To recognize their hard work, associates from the local Wal-Mart store that has served as the collection site will
present the school with a check symbolizing the $1,000 Wal-Mart Foundation grant at a school assembly scheduled for 9:15 a.m. Thursday.
