G/T Students Reflect on Gardening
For 10 students in the Allen County School District’s Gifted and Talented Program, the summer of 2014 was a chance to get their hands dirty---by experiencing first hand the challenges and rewards of gardening.
Embry Pierce, Cole Meador, Aidan Davis, Aaron Shain, Veronica Walker, Sarah Davis, Allison Davis, Sadie Halloway, Austin Stinson, and Douglas Werner participated in a summer gardening program under the supervision of Allen County Gifted and Talented coordinator Vicki Cooper.
“I developed a six-week extensive and intensive unit involving lesson study, research, experiments, and activities, as well as very specific instructions for developing their student journals,” Cooper explained. “I also developed activities for parents to be involved and a place where they could reflect as well. I organized everything into a plan and gave parents calendars to post onto their refrigerators to keep up with everything including watering cycles.”
The project began immediately after the end of the school year as the students were able to use a garden base already in place at the Allen County Intermediate Center. Then, collaborating with the Family Resource Center for help with funding for materials, the students were supplied with seeds and given their instructions and guidelines.
“We met on the Saturday after school was out and planted seeds and the students painted their signs for their different vegetables,” Cooper added. “This is where they got their materials to complete all the lessons and experiments.”
The students took charge of the project at that point---a project which kept the students and their parents involved throughout the summer.
“It was a way for me to connect with nature,” explained student Veronica Walker. “I usually stay inside reading a book or playing a video game. It was also pretty fun to do the rain gauge every day and that helped me with my math.”
For Veronica’s mother, Jolene, the program was rewarding in that she was able to witness her daughter getting excited about learning and seeing her being able to learn in a real world way.
“Veronica was so excited about growing things at school,” explained Jolene Walker, “She really got in to it. Seeing her getting excited about the project was great. They had to keep a rain gauge for the time of the project so that mean she had to do math. If you talk to her about practicing math any other time, she would tell you she hated it. But, when it came time to check the rain gauge she was perfectly happy. Every time we went out there it was an exciting time. I also learned some things myself like growing green beans which I had never grown before. It’s inspired us to start our own garden next year.”
Walker’s student partners also enjoyed the project and learning about the all the aspects of raising food and plants.
“I really liked it,” explained Aaron Shain, “It was fun. I grew cucumbers, corn, beans, and lettuce. It was cool the way you started with a seed and then you had a plant. I also learned things I didn’t know, like how lettuce had different colors.”
The project helped students understand the responsibilities of having a garden.
“I planted cucumbers and carrots,” explained Embry Pierce. “About once a week I went to water. I learned how to take care of plants and a lot of stuff about plants.”
Cole Meador added that he enjoyed doing something that he had never been able to do prior to this summer.
“I was excited because I had never gardened before and that it would be a new experience,” Cole Meador said. “I learned that good food comes from hard work and constant caring. I would like to do this again.”
As the students waited for the seeds to turn into plants, independent work was also required---work that involved each students working along side his parents.
“We had to do little things at home,” noted Melissa Werner, the mother of student Douglas Werner. “I kind of learned with my son. We learned all summer. It was really exciting to watch his work pay off. I also loved the fact that he was able to stay involved with school all summer long. Douglas was motivated and engaged.”
Maritta Shain, the mother of Aaron Shain, added that she liked the way her son took personal ownership of the project and the fact that his summer’s work will also plant a foundation of knowledge for this school year.
“Aaron really felt like the garden was his garden,” Maritta said. “We enjoyed doing the project and it was great. It also went along with what the students study in their first unit of science this year so Aaron now also has some visuals to go along with what he is studying.”
The father of Cole Meador added that the project brings a taste of the real world to his son along with a weekly sense of excitement.
“Cole learned where food comes from and that you don’t just pick it up at the grocery store,” explained Craig Meador. “Cole was ecstatic when the garden started to come up. He was like, let’s go see what we have this week.”
Once the vegetables had grown, the students took the final product home to enjoy---thus seeing the entire cycle of the growing process and the way people can indeed grow their own food.
The parent-involvement project also included a summer-ending field trip in which the students learned about gardening on a much larger scale.
“We ended the project with a field trip to WKU farms where we toured and learned a lot about their gardens as well as their vineyards,” Cooper said. “We had a picnic lunch under the trees in the vineyard and ended at Chaney's Dairy Barn for ice cream before coming home.”
“It was a great thing to do,” added Douglas Werner, a though echoed by student Sarah Davis as she summed up her experience in a word, “awesome.”