The seedlings Tosha Gunderson’s first-grade students plant in the raised garden beds just outside Baker Elementary School serve as an educational metaphor.
Mixing soil, water and lots of sunshine helps develop strong roots and promote growth into mature plants producing tomatoes, peppers, and flowers. When Gunderson teaches the students how to plan, plant, care for and harvest, she’s sowing seeds of knowledge — information she hopes takes root and keeps growing for a lifetime.
Gardening is a new experience for many of her urban-born students that offers an opportunity for her to combine a variety of lessons, like working together and watching the life cycle of plants, while having fun.
It’s a project she has thought about for a long time but just couldn’t get off the ground until she learned about a grant offered by Whole Foods Market, a company that sells natural and organic foods in stores nationwide. The company’s School Garden Grant program helps children “understand that food doesn’t come from a can or a box — but from the magic of a seed.”
Gunderson, who has been teaching for five years, said she learned about the program from literature circulated by the school’s principal.
“I thought, ‘This is my chance. I’m going to do this for the kids because they don’t get to do this sort of stuff,’” she said.
She applied, and to her delight she received a $2,000 grant. The funds purchased wood planks for the raised garden beds she constructed herself, dirt, plants, flower pots and everything the class needed to support the garden.
“The students were so excited and amazed they were going to be get to do this,” Gunderson added.
Her class of about 19 students work on the gardens after school, with half the class working on the first Tuesday of the month and the other half on the second Tuesday. The students are divided into groups of three and assigned various work stations.
Each group works at the station for a designated period of time before a timer goes off and Gunderson announces it is time to rotate to another station. Her plan allows each student to participate in all the different assignments. While some students are loading and dumping dirt, others are painting flower pots or hauling miniature buckets of water.
At one station, students are coating pine cones with peanut butter before rolling them in a container filled with a mixture of seeds and oatmeal.
“We’re making bird feeders. I’m pretty sure we’re going to hand them over there,” 7-year-old Brady Fisher explains as he points to the other side of a school pavilion.
Fisher is in a work group with Zania Williams, 6, and 7-year-old Riley Mangrum, who notices splotches of peanut butter on his fingers and arms.
“I’m about to become a birdfeeder,” Mangrum said.
Gunderson and kindergarten teacher Karmen Lockridge move from group to group to monitor the progress of the project as it nears completion of its first stage.
“I’m hoping to have a summer program where we can learn about recipes,” she said.
Creating a meal from the fruits of their labor would allow the students to see the project come full circle, Gunderson explained.