Being assembled by high school students and volunteers, the new greenhouse for Evergreen Elementary's EATS Gardening program is coming together. The group is now raising funds to put plexiglass on the structure.
A group of fourth graders help sell seedlings on Friday, raising money for their school's EATS Gardening program. Students drew up signage and helped grow a good many of the plants, about half of which were edible and the others more for show.
Wrangell's elementary school gardening program is getting its future greenhouse off the ground, hoping to have it ready before next year's growing season.
E.A.T.S. Garden program coordinator Jenn Miller explained the new greenhouse will be bigger and more efficient than the school's old one, a longstanding structure that has seen better days and is now being used primarily for storage.
The high school construction class last year assembled the structure's framing, and this year a group of senior-year students are installing timbers for the roof as their capstone project. By fall, Miller had hopes that next year's construction students might be able to enclose the structure, making it ready to use before next spring.
The group's funding goal for this last phase is estimated at around $4,000, and will acquire plexiglass paneling for the greenhouse's panes. Students have been raising money through various means, selling seeds earlier this season and garden plants more recently over the weekend.
The sprout and seedling sale was the program's third annual, and students spend months growing, transplanting and caring for many of the plants being sold. A number were also contributed by community members, and sales spearheaded by volunteers. The first crop were sold outside the school on Friday, with whatever was left offered at the Nolan Center during Wrangell's first community market of the season on Saturday.
In all the weekend gleaned an extra $1,000 for the greenhouse, with much of the remaining difference about covered with box tops students have collected. One more drive in the fall should about cover the costs.
Miller explained the E.A.T.S. Garden account goes for care, maintenance and gardening activities, in addition to the greenhouse project. Since its start in 1997, the program is fully teacher- and volunteer-led and supported through grants and donations. Involving elementary students of all ages, the program uses gardening to teach classes different stages of plant biology, nutrition, cooking skills and other lessons.
E.A.T.S. has also partnered with local businesses for curricular integration.
"Our first program was developed by Angie Flickinger of Gathered & Grown Botanicals and I," said Miller. "We visited about local ties we could make to curriculum and chose local plants that Angie could teach the different grade levels about."
Students in kindergarten and first grade learned about dandelions, for instance, while second and third graders have been learning about willows and other trees. Fourth and fifth graders are learning about Southeast forests' ubiquitous shrub, the devil's club.
In future the program hopes to repair the existing greenhouse to use as a shed, while doing further grounds clean up, and begin plans for replacing the garden beds.
For more information on the program, it has sites both at the Chamber of Commerce page at http://www.wrangellchamber.org/eats-wrangell-school-garden.html and the public school page at https://www.wpsd.us/domain/66. The group also updates pages on Facebook and Pinterest.
Reader Comments(0)