Wednesday, Nov. 04, 2009

JAMS garden will teach students and feed community

Central District 104 dedicated its new Good Foods Garden structure at Joseph Arthur Middle School (JAMS) with an Oct. 29 ceremony that included pumpkin carving and scarecrow races, and a message to students that it is good to eat vegetables.

JAMS won the structure this summer in a contest sponsored by the Food Network, which teamed up with Reader’s Digest and the Share Our Strength Foundation for a project designed to bring healthy living into classrooms across the U.S.

Last spring, JAMS entered the Good Foods Garden sweepstakes and, along with eight other schools, it beat out more than 2,000 applicants to receive a custom built garden structure from Teich Garden Systems of South Salem, N.Y.

District 104 and the other finalists each received a $10,000 grant to fund construction of the garden and to maintain it over the next three years. And in September, construction of the 12-foot by 20-foot by 7-foot caged garden structure was completed by volunteers.

The contest sponsors said, “Joseph Arthur Middle School won the grant in part by demonstrating its plans to incorporate the garden into school curricula, as well as by receiving the most votes in an online poll.”

During the dedication ceremony, Principal Pat Anderson told his students it took the help of the entire O’Fallon community to mount the winning campaign for the garden. Online voting from community members placed Central among the top schools.

JAMS Science Teacher Steve Lanter said the school has an extensive plan to use the garden as a teaching tool for learning about how plants grow, learning about science and about healthy living. In addition to the classroom uses, the produce of the new garden will feed students and their families.

“We plan to incorporate ideas of biotechnology, which can obviously be used in science, but it can also be beneficial in math and social studies,” Lanter said.

He explained by using gourds from the garden, social studies students “will see first-hand the history of certain plants and how they have changed over time.”

He noted, “We can talk about how they once were used as dippers and ladles.”

Then listing their scientific uses, he added, “We also are going to make birdhouses out of some of the gourds and hang them in the trees. And we have planted some sunflowers to go along with them as feed for the birds in wintertime.

“We also have some cabbage, which we will use in chemistry classes,” Lanter noted. “Boiled down, the cabbage and the juice it produces becomes a Ph indicator. Add an acid it turns red, add a base it turns blue — just like litmus paper.

Lanter also said students would be able to learn algebraic equations using the genetics of a plant like Indian corn in which genetic variations can be studied by observing the color of kernels.

“With the Indian corn we can draw all kinds of science and math lessons. The ratio of the different colored kernels represents the different alleles that can align,” he explained. “And by determining the ratio of the different colored kernels, the students will be able to determine the parent plants.”

JAMS already had one garden, planted last spring on land south of the building. At that time, Lanter said plotting the large garden presented an opportunity for math and science lessons.

He explained JAMS students had to determine how many of each type of plant would fit in the 15 foot by 15 foot space. And they were asked to create the best configuration for the garden based on the information on back of seed packets, Lanter said.

“They had a little trouble at first but once they got the first plot figured out the others were easy because it is all the same application,” he said.

Discussing plans for the new garden structure, Lanter said, “We are going to optimize the space. We have a book called ‘Square Foot Gardening’ by Mel Bartholomew in which the author has worked out the minimum square foot requirement for each type of plant. So we will have the students do the math to determine how many square feet to devote to each plant.”

He then said the garden structure creates ideal conditions for growing crops. Its planting medium is made up of potting soil and compost. Plus, it has an irrigation system. “This is perfect for more delicate crops like carrots which tend to not grow well around here unless you have been working the soil for a while,” Lanter noted. “We also can grow lettuce right up to Thanksgiving, as long as the weather is not too cold. So we should be able to have fresh salads at that time.”

During the dedication, Anderson also announced plans to expand the district’s exiting garden to create a community garden.

“We are digging up an acre-and-one-half or more over there and we are going to do an adopt a row project,” Lanter explained. “So in the summer, when students are not in school, we want the kids and their parent to adopt a row, to weed the garden and then to take the vegetables back to their home so they can eat fresh foods.

“That is one of the benefits the Good Food Garden folks want from us,” he noted.

“We are very excited about this,” Anderson said. “We want to make it the community’s garden.

“With two gardens, Joseph Arthur Middle School has the means to not only teach students with a unique teaching tool, but we can include parents, families and community members into learning about healthy lifestyles,” he said.

Beyond that, JAMS hopes the Good Foods Garden will leave a lasting impression on students.

“We want students to come away with the knowledge that eating fresh vegetables is really good for you,” Anderson said.

This fall, Lanter and his JAMS students will plant in the new structure cool season vegetables, which can include turnips, lettuce and green beans. In the spring, vegetables such as tomatoes, peppers, corn, cucumbers, eggplants, watermelons, squash and pumpkins will be added.

“The big push these days is toward eating fresh vegetables. We are showing the kids it is good to eat vegetables,” Lanter pointed out.

He added having students involved in planting and caring for the garden will “give them some pride in ownership.” The hard work of planting and caring for the crops also will be beneficial, he noted.

mraeber@bnd.com