NORTHAMPTON — On a sunny fall afternoon, the children at Jackson Street School go outside to weed plants and pick vegetables, and taste the rewards of their garden class. Some of the vegetables are saved for the school’s Harvest Festival on Oct. 19.
In the past, the Harvest Festival has signaled to students that the gardening season is coming to a close. Now, however, the great metal frame of a greenhouse stands next to the garden, a project that parent volunteers have been working on for several weekends, and expect to finish this fall.
“The goal is to extend the garden season, both to get the plants started early and also to get the kids out here earlier in the spring and later in the fall,” said Chris Chamberland, a parent volunteer who has been helping build the greenhouse.
The Jackson Street School started its garden program in 2009, securing a $3,000 Northampton Education Foundation grant three years in a row. The grant paid for a consultant from School Sprouts to create a customized program for the school that incorporated the school’s common core curriculum.
Through subsequent NEF grants and several others, including a Lowe’s grant that paid for materials, the Jackson Street School’s garden program has blossomed.
“It started out with teachers being interested in science that was engaging, as well as an interest in healthy foods,” said Mary Bates, a first-grade teacher at the school and unofficial coordinator of the garden program. “By the third year, every class in the school was going out into the garden.”
The program has three purposes, according to Bates. The first is giving the children an opportunity to explore their lessons through “multi-sensory” learning. The second is giving students what Bates calls an “authentic learning experience,” and the third is teaching the children to care about the earth.
“In the era of common core — a lot of testing — our children are going outdoors and exploring, problem-solving and engaging in a way that was not possible before,” Bates said. “It brings your classroom lessons alive.”
These three components to the garden program culminate in an interactive learning experience. If students are learning about a sunflower, for example, they don’t have to visualize what they read in a textbook. Instead of reading about a sunflower’s hundreds of seeds, students can see and feel those seeds, pick them, plant them and observe the transformation from seed into sunflower.
“They’re seeing something go from seed to when you eat it, but also doing the dirty work,” garden educator Diego Irizarry-Gerould, who works for School Sprouts at the Jackson Street School, said. “If they’re engaged and having fun I consider it a success.”
Bates said the garden program has made events like the Harvest Festival possible, while allowing children access to healthy foods. The school’s garden has featured squash, tomatoes, carrots, parsnips, leeks, radishes, kale, potatoes, beans, garlic, herbs and many other edibles. The school has even used the garden to show students the transformations of caterpillars into butterflies.
The garden isn’t used just for science, though — it’s an outdoor classroom for math and poetry as well.
“Math, for example — they’ve measured area and perimeter there. Instead of reading a book the teachers can take them out to measure the beds,” Bates said.
All grades participate in the school’s garden program, and whatever subject a class is learning, the children make use of the outdoor area.
“It’s cool to get outside for class,” fourth-grader Sophie Levin said. “I like doing the poetry, because we get to be more creative.”
“It’s fun how every class does it, even kindergarten,” said Immani Power-Greene, another fourth-grader.
Now, the Jackson Street School has received another two years of funding from the NEF at $26,000, and the school’s community is able to team up to build the greenhouse.
“Jackson Street always maintains a strong connection with the outside world, so the greenhouse is about strengthening that bond,” said Michael Charland-Tait, a parent who is working on building the greenhouse. “It’s also about recognizing that Northampton is surrounded by farmlands and there should be a strong connection between that and the schools.”