DALLAS — While showing the third graders at Withers Elementary School how to plant onions, Dallas County 4-H agent Ed Bright told them to put the sets down a finger’s length into the ground.
“This could be the reason their onions are a little bit too high in the soil,” he said. “Third-grade fingers are shorter than an adult’s.”
Over the past nine months, 67 third graders at Withers Elementary School added a vegetable garden project to their everyday assignments. Four third grade classes were involved with the project. Each class worked a fourth of the garden.
Bright said this project teaches the students how to “grow and care for their own garden and learn where their food comes from before it reaches their plate for dinner.” The Better Living for Texans nutrition program and 4-H combined efforts to help the students put the garden together, and learn about healthy foods too. Beverly Hill, a Dallas County Master Gardener volunteer, kept up with the day-to-day maintenance of the garden.
The teachers, Sarah Jones, Monica Morgan, Georgia Cortemeglia, and Natala Assa, doubling as a 4-H leader, guided the students on how to care for their plants.
“It was a privilege to come out and work in the garden,” said Bright. “So, the children had to work hard at their other studies to be allowed to care for their vegetables.”
Dr. Veronica Pasturnak, the school’s principal, said, “It provides an oasis for children from the city and lets them experience the responsibility and care that goes into a garden. After all, reading cannot replace experience as a learning tool.” During the year, they harvested the vegetables and ate them at school.
The children grew okra, peppers, potatoes, carrots, beets, radishes, lettuce, and onions. They even had a rabbit living among their lettuce. At the end of the school year, the students cleared out the garden, each taking home a bag of vegetables. The garden project continues into its fourth year next fall with a new group of third graders. Each student received a ribbon for hard work and accomplishments in the garden.
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