We like to work with teachers in our programs to integrate the garden with the classroom curriculum. We utilize curricula mapping to directly tie our outdoor lessons to science, math and more. Our programs give those students who have a hard time conceptualizing, the real life tools to apply.
This fall, garden coordinators, administrators, and board members from Grow Some Good met with the Story Connective to do a Story Bridge workshop. Participants were prompted to talk about a time they experienced in the garden that a child will never forget.
These stories provide a glimpse of the magic that happens in school gardens. Take a listen to these remarkable stories here.
Mahalo to the Story Connective for putting together this wonderful collection.
The bin in the photo above is my home compost pile. It is about the same size as the ones at Kihei El. Some of our schools have a 3-bin system (on right) but personally I find those limiting unless you have a small garden as each bin is too small. I prefer a 5ʻ diameter wire bin any day! I can also move them around the garden easily.
If youʻve been filling all your bins for awhile like we have at Kihei El, there may be an enormous amount of good compost on the ground around the bins. Get out your shovel and collect it for use in the garden beds.
The 2018-19 school year marks the 10th year of Grow Some Good providing educational school gardens for Maui students. It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years! As a strategic and visionary organization, we took a look at where we have been and where we should put our focus for the next five years and beyond.
In June, the Board of Directors met to discuss the organization’s status and future strategic goals. As part of the process, we reviewed the strategic planning documents from our last session in 2015. A highlight of this review was recognizing all the great things we have accomplished since 2015! It is also reassuring to see that we are still on our planned path toward our mission to “cultivate healthier communities by strengthening local agriculture and improving access to nutritious, affordable food.”
Looking at the immediate future, Grow Some Good identified goals and activities for the 2018-19 School Year.
Strengthen School Relationships. Enhance our work in curriculum across grade levels, especially in the areas of science. Set expectations of schools and students and provide key curriculum, making it easy for teachers to utilize complementary lessons in the classroom. Demonstrate the true value of the garden as an effective learning tool.
Strategic Expansion. Focus on areas of maximum opportunity, such as adding a grade or class at an existing school or enhancing a specific project. We see limited expansion into new schools during the upcoming school year.
Build and Solidify Partnerships. While we have an active and supportive network in the chef and restaurant community, we want to expand beyond this group. Our goal is to reach more local farmers, businesses, community groups and educational resources.
Enhance our Outreach Programs. In our early years, GSG volunteers and staff actively participated in many community events. This has tapered off recently. Our goal for the coming year is to participate in relevant community activities to engage with new volunteers and supporters. Leveraging off a tagline we had for years, we are calling the Outreach Program “Grow Some Good in Your Neighborhood,” and will include participation in events, Work & Learn Days, and other activities.
Adaptation and Utilization of Specialists. We are reviewing various cost saving opportunities such as outsourcing some Human Resources activities, or utilizing an irrigation specialist. This allows GSG to leverage the expertise of people and groups in our community while focusing on what we do best.
With over 4,000 students participating in our programs at 11 Maui schools, Grow Some Good is one of the largest school garden program providers in the state. As the Farm to School movement in Hawaii gains traction, we recognize the opportunity to provide leadership, data, and activities to support the movement. Initiatives like the ‘Aina Pono Farm to School Program re-introduce local produce and agriculture products into select school cafeterias across the state. We anticipate this program will grow in popularity, creating a need and desire to provide more local and school-grown produce for school cafeterias, as well as opportunities to develop more growing spaces and food forests on campuses. Grow Some Good is preparing for this opportunity by reaching out to local partners and funders who might be interested in supporting this important change for our schools and students.
As we look to the next school year, we are excited about deploying some new projects, enhancing our gardens and working with our schools to increase the educational value of the garden programs.
As the 2017-18 school year came to a close, Grow Some Good conducted its annual School Garden Survey of teachers and principals. Results of both surveys showed that school garden programs make a significant impact with students and are changing the faces of our school campuses.
The following tables highlight some of the most significant results that came from about 120 teachers who participate in our program. Results come from grade K-8 and across 10 schools.
“I think Garden is something we ALL look forward to. The students love being outside and learning in a hands-on environment about things they genuinely find interesting.”
There are some children who struggle with academic learning but excel with the hands-on experience of the garden – this is an important part of their education.
“Students really enjoyed going to the garden and learning about the plants, growing plants, harvesting, observing the cycles of nature, learning about insects, composting, taking care of the plants, and much more! Such a positive experience!”
“The students love garden days!”
Principals agreed that the gardens make a positive impact on their school campuses.
100% of principals agreed that Garden:
“The garden adds so much to our school culture and promotes a sense of pride on our campus.”
“Our garden coordinator is awesome, dedicated and makes things happen.”
“It was great this year!”
Grow Some Good cares deeply about our island environment, and it has long been a goal of ours to reduce the amount of waste generated at the annual Taste of School Gardens event. Through our partnership with the Maui Huliau Foundation Green Events program, and our event hosts at Maui Tropical Plantation, this year we hope to meet this goal and minimize the waste that goes to landfills.
This year we’re excited to present a “zero-waste” event as part of our eco-plan for Taste of School Gardens. What does that mean? Can any event really be “zero-waste?”
Maybe not completely, but we can get close! Zero-waste stations throughout the event will have separate receptacles for food waste and recyclable material, diverting 65-86% of waste from landfills. Each station has bins, educational signs and volunteers to ensure that items are disposed of properly. These waste stations become educational opportunities to share the importance of the tenants of reduce, reuse, and recycle, and demonstrate how simple it can be.
The use of compostable serving dishes, forks, and spoons, generously donated by Sustainable Island Products, will help reduce waste further. As gardeners, we know the value of composting and creating rich, vibrant soil, and we’re excited about using compostable materials. We’re also encouraging guests to reuse their glassware, and providing rinse stations for glasses at the wine tents.
Chef Geno Sarmiento of Nick’s Fishmarket recently visited the gardens to give students a hands-on cooking demonstration. Together they prepared gnocchi with an herb tomato sauce and pan-seared shrimp. Garden Coordinator Jadda Miller, along with Chef Geno, take questions from the class.
Chef Geno holds up a cherry tomato, one of the ingredients in making the herb tomato sauce. He showed the students how to roll and then cut the dough used to make gnocchi, an Italian dumpling.
“I like rolling the dough.” “I like cutting the dough.” “I like eating the gnocchi!”
This garden cooking demonstration was put on by Chef Geno Sarmiento, Executive Chef, and the team at Tri-Star Restaurant Group, which manages Nick’s Fishmarket inside Fairmont Kea Lani, Sarento’s on the Beach on Keawakapu Beach, Manoli’s Pizza Company in Wailea, and Son’z Steakhouse inside Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa in Kaanapali. Mahalo to the entire team for supporting this fun cooking demonstration event for our students.
Bjarne Salen, of Endless Flow Films, spent two days in the gardens with the students, Garden Coordinator Jadda Miller, and Chef Geno and his team, documenting the cooking demonstrations. Mahalo Bjarne, for donating your time and talent to create wonderful photos of this fun and memorable experience for our students.
Chef Geno generously shared his recipe with us:
Most plants grow from seeds, which come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and textures. Within this compact package, seeds contain everything a plant needs to grow and reproduce. Some seeds, such as grass, begin life with one leaf. These kinds of seeds are monocots. Other seeds, such as beans, begin life with two leaves. These kinds of seeds are dicots.
The outside covering of seeds is called the seed coat. It protects the baby plant, or embryo, inside the seed. The seed also contains endosperm, or a food supply, that the embryo uses to grow until the plant can manufacture its own food. In order for seeds to grow into plants, they need soil containing nutrients, water, sunlight, the right temperature, room to grow, and time. In this lesson, students will have the opportunity to observe this process for themselves.
Discuss what living things need to live and thrive. They will begin with a discussion of what people need. They will compile a list that includes the following: food, water, a place to live, ways to stay warm when it is cold and cool when it is hot, and someone to care for them. They will then go through the same exercise for animals and plants. They will discover that all living organisms have similar needs. At this point, students will probably realize that seeds, which contain a baby plant, also have these same basic needs. Throughout the lesson, they will form a better understanding of this as they look inside a seed and then plant seeds and watch them grow.
Next, students will work in pairs to dissect lima bean seeds that have been soaked overnight. Using a hand lens, they observe the embryo and food supply. Then they complete a “What Are the Parts of a Seed?” worksheet, which asks them to label a diagram of a seed and write down what each part does. This section of the lesson will conclude with a review of what plants need to grow.
Students should place one or two seeds in the hole and cover them with soil. Students are instructed to water the soil when it looks dry. They can tell when the growing plants need water by sticking their fingers one inch into the soil. If it feels dry, then watering is necessary.
Students will write down their observations on the observation sheet.
After the plants have started to sprout, go over the different parts that are emerging. Make sure that students can name these parts and describe their functions:
On their observation sheets, students should draw pictures of the growing plant, labeling each part as it emerges.
Tropism is a growth response between a plant and an external stimulus. The stimulus could be weather, touch, time, gravity or light. A positive response is indicated by growth toward a stimulus and a negative response is indicated by growth away from the stimulus. Light is a stimulus that plants respond to. This is called phototropism (photo= light).
Plants usually display a positive phototropic response to light, which means they grow toward a light source. Plant hormones called auxins play a part in phototropism. Auxin is a plant growth hormone. When light is shined on one side of a plant the auxins move to the dark side of the plant. The hormones stimulate the cells on the dark side of the plant to elongate, while the cells on the light side of the plant remain the same. This elongation on one side and staying the same on the other causes the plant to bend in the direction of the light. This bending allows more light to reach more cells on the plant that are responsible for conducting photosynthesis. Wow!
You can create an experiment to see phototropism in action!
To see the effects of phototropism on a plant, make your own shoe-box maze. You will need: a shoebox, extra cardboard, scissors, tape, and a small potted plan. Bean plants work well. Students should have an adult help with the following cutting and box building steps.
The box should look like the box shown below.
Place the small potted plant in the shoebox opposite the hole, make sure that it is well watered. (We started a bean in a plastic cup.)
Close the box, tape it, and place it in a sunny window.
In about 4 or 5 days open the box and notice how the plant grows in the direction of the light coming from the hole!!!
Plants have evolved adaptations that allow them to ‘move’. Not in the sense that they uproot and walk away, but in other ways. Plants can move toward or away from water, the sun, and in response to gravity! This is called tropism.
Definitions:
Tropism: the means by which a plant grows towards or away from stimuli
Stimuli: a thing or event that evokes/influences a functional reaction
During class, students split up into groups and search for examples of tropism in the garden. These include:
Once all groups have found their example, each group will share what they found and how it is a type of tropism. These might include plants growing up trellises, toward sunshine, or toward a water source. We have many vining plants in our gardens include green beans, peas, watermelon, ipu, and lilikoi, which make great examples of tropism.
Fill a glass jar with water. Select a large leaf from a plant or tree nearby, drop it into the jar and screw the lid on. Place the jar in a sunny spot. After an hour, ask students to look in the jar and report what they see inside.
What would happen if we held our breath, underwater, at the pool and then let out air?
Bubbles!
As oxygen is released by the leaf in the sun, many tiny bubbles form showing photosynthesis in action. The process of photosynthesis is what allows us to see the bubbles — as the leaf releases its extra oxygen while submerged, the oxygen can be seen as bubbles in the water. As a leaf creates that energy, it needs to get rid of the items it no longer needs so it will expel both the extra oxygen during photosynthesis along with water, called transpiration.
And since oxygen is lighter than water, the bubbles will eventually rise to the surface.
Does a tree or plant breathe the same as we (humans) do? No. A plant, tree or leaf doesn’t have any lungs or respiratory system; but it is a living organism just like we are.
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