I grew up with a garden. One of my favorite memories is of eating home grown tomatoes, with salt and pepper, at the drive-in theater. I felt sorry for those kids that had to eat popcorn. But despite the fact my school is in a rural area, only a few of my students know where their food comes from.
Many of my students have limited life experience.
Quite a few haven't ever been outside of Texas, or for that matter more than 100 miles from our small town rural school.
But when I engage them, they are the best students in the world. While we are a high-poverty school, with a large Hispanic and ESL (English as Second Language) population, we always achieve recognized or exemplary status according to the Texas Education Agency rating system. My kids are amazing. But they don't know where their food comes from. The primary crops raised in our area are cotton and maize, and only a few of my students have any connection to that part of our economy. I need to demonstrate to them where their food comes from, which means I must give them a hands-on way to grow plants in the classroom. All of the concepts of ecosystems, environmental science, pollution come down to a simple question. Will the plants grow?
My Project
Children spend much of their time in the school setting, so schools can play a large role in the adoption of healthy living habits. Of the many ways to present nutrition education, gardening is perhaps the best way to teach and learn healthy eating habits. Benefits of using gardening to teach nutrition include: Providing hands-on learning and practice using the scientific method. Exciting children about eating vegetables and herbs that they grew themselves. Teaching students to appreciate how their food is grown (Carrots do not magically appear on grocery store shelves.) Food safety instruction through proper harvesting, processing and storage. Practice preparing nutritious foods and try new foods to expand their diets. The shovels, forks and accessories will enable us to build upon our outdoor garden, and learn about proper nutrition as advocated by Feed USA. Help us garden together!
I am a lifelong learner.
My goal is to instill the joy of lifelong learning into all of my students. If they experience even a small share of the sense of awe and wonder that I do every day while learning with them, I will have succeeded. The shovels, fork and accessories for use in our school/community garden that I've requested will help us achieve that success.
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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 Mr. Cable and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.