SCI students have fun while getting their hands dirty
Mike Wheatcroft, a teacher at Stayner Collegiate Institute (SCI), speaks to his class of Grade 10 students, explaining what they need to get done.
He assigns some students to watering the hundreds of vegetables and herbs that are growing throughout the school’s new greenhouse.
Other students are asked to plant onions or transplant tiny seedlings from their trays into larger pots where they will grow until it’s time to re-plant everything outside later this month. Once he’s finished speaking, he turns on the radio and Paul McCartney’s Live and Let Die fills the sunny, glass structure. Every single student goes right to work.
As I wander around the greenhouse, one of the students explains to me why he likes this new course. “It’s different in here, we learn a lot of things about many different plants and the different stages of growing. It’s hands on learning, we get our hands dirty and have fun.”
After practicing landscape architecture for more than 10 years, Wheatcroft became one of only a few green industries teachers in the Simcoe County District School Board (SCDSB).
The school received $450,000 for a new greenhouse from the SCDSB as part of their technology renewal program. Another $50,000 came from a Ministry of Education Healthy Eating grant. Both grants have enabled Wheatcroft and SCI to offer the course this year to a full class of 24 students each semester.
“The healthy eating program money has allowed us to buy all the equipment and tools we needed to get going and combined with the greenhouse, it has become the backbone of our green industries program here at SCI,” says Wheatcroft.
Wheatcroft and his students have hit the ground running. The school has purchased soil, pots, seeds, watering cans, wheelbarrows, shovels, construction materials etc.
They have planted hundreds of herbs and vegetables in their traditional greenhouse beds, but they also have six tower gardens where vegetables grow vertically that have been a huge success.
The green industries course’s primary focus is on growing food and providing sustainable green gardens, but it will also teach students about environmental science, horticulture, garden construction and science. So far, Wheatcroft has found his students to be very engaged.
“They want to be outside and in the greenhouse, learning with their hands and by doing the physical work. That’s how they learn best,” he says.
The school has developed working partnerships with a number of local organizations and projects within Stayner, all of which are within walking distance from the school.
They are working on projects with the community garden, the Horticultural Society, the food bank, the library and Stayner’s new Eco park.
They are growing seedlings and plants, helping plant trees, shrubs and vegetables.
As well, Wheatcroft says, “We will be cutting and planting a new outdoor garden at the school soon and we have plans to develop a composting and school beautification program.”
Each of the four elementary feeder schools – Byng, Clearview Meadows, Nottawasaga-Creemore and New Lowell – will be visiting the greenhouse this semester. Students from Kindergarten to Grade 8 will come to learn about growing plants, monitoring growth, water conservation and other areas of gardening that are within their curriculum.
