(Photo: Moises Canales/620 CKRM)
Grade five and six students at Ethel Milliken Elementary School in Regina celebrated the end of a class project they’ve been working on throughout the school year.
The project is part of a program organized by the Regina Food Bank and Mosaic Company called the Urban Agriculture School Outreach Project. This is its second year which features 24 locations who have been participating since September of last year.
Ms. Brentnell’s grade 5/6 split class at Ethel Milliken received a tool kit at the beginning of the 2018-2019 year to help grow food in their classroom.
The tool kit included what is called a “Garden Tower”, grow lights, soil, seeds, red wiggler worms and other accessories to help teach students the process of preparing a garden and how to take care of the plants.
On Thursday afternoon, representatives from the school division, Mosaic and the food bank joined the class for “The Final Harvest” ceremony to celebrate the students’ hard work in helping their garden tower succeed the past several months.
“We took on this project because I’ve always loved gardening and I knew it would be something that I would be able to share with my students,” said Ms. Brentnell. “We had to grow everything from seeds, the students planted everything into the tower, and we had composting worms to deal with every day.”
TOP: Ms. Brentnell’s classroom Garden Tower stands in the middle of the room sprouting a number of different plants from all corners. BOTTOM: Students dig their hands in the dirt to learn more about the importance fertilizer plays in growing a successful garden. (Photos: Moises Canales/620 CKRM)
It was a rewarding experience for the kids who were full of excitement when speaking about the project during their lunch break. Ritvik Manicka, Peyton Magnuson and Kori Owens-Nahorney chatted about their highlights from the class activity.
“I believe we learned a lot of things in agriculture and gardening because it’s an important life skill that everyone must learn to have a healthy community,” said Ritvik. “I believe in food sustainability. By 2050 when the population reaches over 9 billion, we need something that can sustain us since we can’t keep clearing our forests.”
“I’ve learned a lot about planting different plants,” explained Kori, who mentioned that she may take on her own garden someday when she’s older. “I’d want to be more healthy in my life and so I can do something.”
“We did a lot of different types of projects on plants and we learned about them from researching different plants up,” said Peyton. “I think it’d be really cool to have my own garden and plant different kinds of vegetables and herbs. I’d like that.”
The tower itself can grow up to 72 plants in just 4 square feet of space. Its design is 100 per cent recyclable food-grade plastic and rotates 360 degrees for simply gardening.
Stationed in the middle of the classroom, the tower itself has about a week and half until the class has completed the project.
Twitter: @MoisesCanalesJr
