Year-round produce a possibility for these students

Looking for fresh produce all year long? Two groups of Olathe elementary school students are focusing their growing interest in science on aeroponic Tower Gardens to grow vegetables and other crops through the winter months.

Two Olathe elementary school teachers worked together to plan the project and apply for and receive a $15,000 grant from the Women’s Giving Circle of the Olathe Public Schools Foundation. April Schoenberg teaches fifth grade at Northview Elementary, and Ariel Jankord teaches fourth grade at Briarwood Elementary.

The aeroponic white towers, about 5 feet tall with bright LED light hanging over the sides, look almost like futuristic space crafts until you see all the produce growing from various nooks on them. Each of the two schools bought six of them with the grant money.

They met at a summer conference for teachers. Jankord had already used a Tower Garden in her classroom at another school, and Schoenberg had attended the Summer Soybean Science Institute at Kansas State University, which piqued her interest in the topic.

The two did a lot of research into how the gardens could help student performance, encourage healthy eating habits and provide other benefits to the schools. Schoenberg has already noticed an increase in attendance.

“When they grow it themselves, they’re a lot more willing to eat it,” Schoenberg said.

At Northview, the gardens are already bursting with lettuce, basil, kale, tomatoes, cucumbers and other plants. Each “Fresh Friday” the students harvest something from the garden and make a recipe with it. So far, they’ve made pesto with the basil, smoothies and chips with the kale, and salads with the lettuce.

The teachers use a curriculum based on the Green Bronx Machine project in New York.

Schoenberg divided her classroom into teams who take turns doing different parts of the maintenance for the gardens and the Friday cooking duties. Jankord has any student in her class who doesn’t attend the school’s special chorus time spend that part of the school day working on the gardens.

That maintenance includes adding minerals as necessary and checking the pH (acidity level) of the water each week to make sure it’s in the right range. If it’s not, students have to measure a special solution to adjust it and add a corresponding amount of water.

That’s what 10-year-old Adah Reid was doing last week. When she checked the garden, it had a pH of 7.5. Adah knew it was too acidic and did the math to figure out how much pH- solution and water to add to bring it down to 6.5.

Although the only gardening experience she has is helping her grandma with potatoes and tomatoes and growing a few flowers, she’s eager to learn all about the aeroponic system and pass on her knowledge.

For Adah, the best part is that “we’re the ones who get to teach the other kids how to do it,” she said.

Students also observe how the different exposure times from the LED lights affect the plants’ growth.

“All these skills we’re always trying to teach — it brings it to life. They’re adding milliliters based on the amount of gallons. … There’s all these things that are really hard concepts to teach kids, and this is a natural way for them to learn,” Jankord said.

Jankord also said that indoor gardens are easier to maintain, because pests and weather aren’t an issue.

Right now, the gardens at Briarwood are a fourth-grade project. At Northview, Schoenberg’s students are starting to teach other grades about the Tower Gardens, with the idea that each of the six grades will take over one garden’s care.

Though some of Schoenberg’s students had experience gardening, many of them had never grown anything. Jankord said the majority of her students had spent some time working on a regular garden before now.

Schoenberg said they hope to possibly sell some of the produce to raise money to pay for consumables like the rock wool growing medium, seeds and minerals once the grant funds are exhausted.

She also hopes to eventually partner with the district’s culinary arts program to both share excess produce and have the older kids teach her students a few things.

This story was originally published November 19, 2018 at 7:36 PM with the headline "Year-round produce a possibility for these students."