Vision

There is no better way to ensure life skills, human health, wellness and health of the environment than to have students learn how to grow their own food. Our class decided to create an indoor growing environment and we called it Baldwin’s Farm.

After spending time learning about the human causes of excess greenhouse gases and the real impacts of climate change on our community, we decided to plant some plants. Our 3E Environmental Science/4E Science class focused on the relationship between the photosynthesis equation and carbon dioxide. If we could use plants, shrubs and trees to capture carbon from the atmosphere and at the same time grow ourselves and our school’s Food’s Room some produce, it would be a win-win.

Action

In March, we decided to purchase an Indoor Garden Kit, with LED lights for 3 shelves. Students were inspired by family and friends in their lives who have successfully grown vegetable gardens, with some students even having experienced growing up or working part-time on farms. “We can do it!”, was the attitude and so Baldwin’s Farm was launched. We knew that waiting until the outdoor growing season began wouldn’t be ideal timing for us, so the indoor garden kit was our solution. One student reached out to the Food and Nutrition Tech teacher with a checklist to see which herbs and vegetables might be best for us to grow and donate to their program. The answer came back as: lettuce, carrots, microgreens, hot peppers, peas, oregano, chives, basil, cherry tomatoes would all work. That list determined most of our gardening plans. We bought seeds, a group of students built the purchased indoor garden kit, another student drew up the seed planting scheme, a small group decorated our bulletin board using fabric instead of one-time use paper, and we all made posters to put up around our school to share our learning about the benefits of growing your own garden. We wanted to inspire other students in the school to try growing herbs and vegetables of their own this spring/summer and to share our good news that we were starting a ‘farm’!

By March 28, we had our seeds planted and the LED grow lights turned on. When we came back after that next weekend, which happened to be Easter weekend, our seeds had sprouted and the plants were growing! Our plan to distribute our produce to the Foods room meant that we needed a sustainable packaging plan. Research led us to choose brown paper bags as the package. Since then, we have harvested lettuce 5 times, a small amount of oregano, and we are still working on nurturing the carrots, chives, and peas. Basil and cherry tomatoes were recently purchased as plants instead of growing from seed but we care for them like they are our own. Our harvests have all been welcomed so far with open arms by our Foods room.

It became obvious to us that improving the health of the environment wasn’t the only benefit of gardening and taking care of plants. From the student voice, these were the benefits mentioned: “learned how to take care of something”, “I felt proud”, “learned how to solve plant growth problems (ex. algae growing on the soil, carrot plants too close together)”, “I liked the responsibility of watering”, “it got us up and moving”, “I was proud that we helped give fresh food to the cooking class, with no emissions from transporting it”. From the teacher’s perspective, I saw individual students rise to the challenge of being responsible for watering, for following instructions, for building the indoor garden kit from a pile of boxes, and I do feel that learning how to grow plants from seeds is a significant life skill as my Gr. 11 and 12 students move toward independence.

The other portion of our plan involved using native shrubs and trees as another avenue of carbon capture. Let’s double down and use the photosynthesis equation to our advantage again! This time our carbon capture would be happening outside which we realized to be a highly significant difference. Our school is lucky to border on a large neighbourhood pond which has proven to be a healthy pond based on our water quality testing. It is surrounded on our school’s side with long grasses, shrubs and trees but we recognized a few open areas that would be a prime location to plant native shrubs and trees to not only capture additional carbon but to increase the biodiversity of the pond’s bufferstrip. Students connected the resilience of native shrubs and trees with the increasingly obvious temperature and soil moisture changes due to climate change.

One student connected us with the Maitland Conservation Foundation of the Maitland Valley Conservation Authority since they annually sell native shrubs and trees at a very reasonable price. Our town borders on the jurisdiction of two conservation authorities, both the Maitland Valley Conservation Authority and the Ausable-Bayfield Conservation Authority which proved to be good student learning. We found that both sell native shrubs and trees at a comparable price. Together, we researched which shrubs and trees were suitable for the soil type, moisture level and amount of sunlight. As a class, we successfully purchased, and planted 5 shrubs (red osier dogwood, sandbar willow, spicebush) and 1 tree (red maple) in open spaces along the upper ridge of our backyard pond. The spring weather has been kind to us and we haven’t needed to water our young shrubs and trees so far, but students are wearing their responsibility hats since we have living things to care for.

Reflection & Celebration

Our school community is largely agricultural-based. We draw from small communities such as Clinton, Blyth, Bayfield, Brucefield, Holmesville and all the farmland in between. Students chose our action project based on what they deemed to be important for improving the environment. Planting and growing is a large part of our local community fabric. Without a doubt, they understood the positive impacts of our indoor growing and outdoor planting action project and most importantly they have been all smiles throughout the process!