Living lessons

With seed money, sixth-graders plot a garden that teaches them many things and will feed the hungry.

By CHRISTINE GRAEF

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 1, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- Rick Marley quietly hoed the plot of ground outside Karen Hall's classroom at Tyrone Middle School. When the weeds disappeared, sixth-grade classmates Jerry Phillips and Markey Thompson filled and dumped a wheelbarrow of soil to rake over the plot. Others of Mrs. Hall's 18 students were busy charting monarch butterflies or finding out if sand absorbs water more quickly than soil.

It does not, said sixth-grader Ashley Masalin as she examined the process under a magnifying glass. Ashley concluded that the soil was essential for the beans, peppers, cucumbers, yellow squash, watermelon and cantaloupe the students will be planting. The soil, seeds and other equipment were paid for with a $750 grant from the National Gardening Association, awarded to 300 schools in the country this year. The harvest will be donated to local soup kitchens.

"This was given to us by the community and I'd like the students to use it to give something back to the community," Mrs. Hall said.

Mrs. Hall began a class garden three years ago with a student project outside the back door of her classroom at Tyrone Middle, at 6421 22nd Ave. N. The garden grew in stages and now the 594-square-foot lot includes banana trees, milkweed and pink galardias. Around the corner is a native garden blossoming with iris, salvia and golden dew drops, planted for the seeds birds flock to eat in the fall.

Students discovered that the milkweed is a favorite place for monarch butterflies to lay eggs. First hatched in a glass tank in the classroom and then released, the cycle of the butterflies is carefully charted on a wall in the classroom. Red lines show that the most eggs were found in the garden in mid-November. Blue lines point to early December as the height of butterfly season. Caterpillars are most likely to be found at the end of November.

Rick said he concluded that butterflies hatch in about two weeks.

The observations are incorporated into lessons in science, language arts, reading and math.

"Mrs. Hall lets us do gardening most of the time. We'll be making bird houses when the gourds grow," said Lysondra Shannon.

The gourds are now just green sprouts in plastic cups beneath Mrs. Hall's classroom window. Their growth is measured and charted almost daily. Each student has six cups of various types of seeds, which are unlabeled. Mrs. Hall's own seedlings are labeled and used as a control group. Mrs. Hall said this is so students can compare and make scientific observations. They will make a prediction and later, when the plant is taller and identifiable, see if they were right.

Today students will research annuals and perennials. After discovering what light, soil and climate they thrive in, each student will select a plant and explain why it is the best choice for the garden. Seeds are often obtained through an Internet seed swap, which also provides a geography lesson as students discover the plants' native states.

"The students enjoy this. They've got so much energy and this is something that gives them results they can see," Mrs. Hall said.

Earlier in the year Adrian Harrell brought seeds home from the wildflowers that had blossomed. She said she planted them in her yard and they've grown. "They're so pretty. I wanted to see them outside growing," the sixth-grader said.

"It gives them a lifelong hobby. It's something that will make their community nicer. And something that's very satisfying," Mrs. Hall said.

The landscape of the school will continue to change as Indian hawthorne, hibiscus and crotons are planted outside the neighboring classroom of the seventh-grade house. Next, Mrs. Hall said they would study what might grow best in the shade of the media center.

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