I teach at an innovative and award-winning, K-12th, dual-language, public charter school in Delaware with a diverse school student population. Fifty percent of our students are minorities and low-income. All of our students study the Greek language and global studies. Our Title I school is located on the outskirts of Wilmington. I truly love working at a diverse school with a focus on global citizenship!
I teach food studies, African-American history, Advanced Placement human geography, and US history to tenth to twelfth-grade students.
I am also the K-12th grade garden coordinator, advisor of Girls Grow Greens club, and one of the leaders of the Green Team on campus.
Our school is one of only a few schools in Delaware and in the country to receive the eco-schools USA Green Flag award for excellence in environmental action and learning. Recently, our school was honored to be selected as a 2020 U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon School!
Our Green Team has worked incredibly hard to implement several major projects to educate our students about how to be environmental stewards of the planet. For example, we now have a school vegetable garden with thirty-four raised beds, chickens, and goats!
My Project
Students in 6th-12th grades currently participate in a weekly after-school program (90 minutes) titled “Girls Grow Greens” during the 2020-2021 school year. They have been equipped with advanced farming technology, including 3 layer Sananbio Radix kits to explore how urban agriculture can be a viable solution for feeding a global population. Students participate in choosing the growth media; select and plant seeds; combine plants and nutrients and water; monitor plant growth; compost; control pests; and harvest 3,000 fresh vegetables and herbs every 5-6 weeks. In total, students will grow 4,000 pounds of produce in 1 school year! To date, this fall, my students have harvested close to 1,000 pounds of fresh produce! 100% of it has been donated to homebound seniors, displaced people, and families living in poverty with no access to traditional food bank programs.
Moreover, the program provides rich opportunities for students to learn more about their own career interests, to develop life skills, to help their families make healthier food choices, and to make positive changes in their community.
Inspired by the Donors Choose project titled "Budding Ecologists Need a Drone and Hydroponics System" and "If We Build Up Girls, Then We All Become STEMinists," the female students will watch videos featuring scientist Ronda Hamm and Bridget Coughlin (long profiles) to learn about pioneering women in STEM! Next, they will be broken up into two stations w/ kitchen supplies. Each week they will conduct a "food experiment" and explore a variety of STEM topics, such as measurement, patterns, chemistry, properties of matter, cause and effect, and much more. Students will also learn about our food systems and prepare vegetables and herbs hydroponically grown by them! These opportunities will help students develop technical and soft skills for more than 200 careers in the food & agricultural sector.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Tracy and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
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