Vision

This project has been a few years in the making and each year’s class has been inspired for various reasons. This year’s group of grade 7/8 students shared their reasons for wanting to continue and grow further what other classes had begun. The main inspiration for the students was the idea of making a difference by helping others and giving back to the planet. After studying ecosystems, water systems, global warming, climate change and issues surrounding sustainability, the students felt they needed to do their part, no matter how small. Many felt that the experience gained would benefit them in the future and teach them important skill sets that they could use for a lifetime. Their decision was not only to continue the project but to do more and to also find solutions to problems that have been encountered to date. Their hope is to instill a desire in people to help each other and to ensure that the environment is sustainable for future generations.

The following paragraphs were student written.

Three years ago, the grade 7/8 class at the time started working on a garden bed with a self-watering system to produce food for the school’s breakfast club; however, due to Covid restrictions, only the garden bed itself was built. Last year’s class was able to create an herb garden but, unfortunately, were not able to plant them due to the colder weather approaching, thus sparking the idea for indoor growing all year long. This year, we (the students) decided to complete the original project, but have also grown it into three separate projects, which will come together to help both our community and school.

Our project has successfully helped build a more sustainable future to meet the following united nations (UN) goals. The first UN goal we have accomplished is Climate Action. We have planted and are growing pollinators that will benefit the community, they are going to help sustain our gardens for many years to come. As plants help to reduce CO2 emissions and produce oxygen, we are doing our part to reduce greenhouse gasses. The next goal we are aiming to accomplish is Life On Land, when we transfer our pollinators into our outside garden, we will have successfully provided bees with a new habitat and a safer environment. The biggest goal we are aiming to achieve is Zero Hunger. Once our fruits and vegetables have successfully matured to an edible state, we hope to donate them to either the local food bank or our school’s breakfast club.

Action

The goals of our project were to grow a variety of vegetables and fruits, our plan also included taking over four unused areas around our school to plant a variety of flowers to draw in various pollinators to help with the environment and to get the automated watering system in our outdoor garden up and running. Our first goal was to purchase an indoor greenhouse, which has helped us to start growing a variety of fruits and vegetables that we hope to give to our school breakfast club when available. We have also planted a variety of flowers in our indoor greenhouse that we hope will attract many pollinators to our school when the weather warms. We were, unfortunately, unable to prepare some of the unused areas around our school during the garden project until recently due to the many frost advisories in the last few weeks, and we have yet been unable to transplant our various flowers and vegetables outside the unused areas and garden bed because we were worried about their survival. This week we were able to get our watering system functional and ready for transplanting once the weather cooperates.

To complete everything we wanted to accomplish, our grade 8’s finished installing the fully automated watering system for our outdoor garden bed, While the grade 7’s have focused on growing many plants indoors to transplant them outdoors. Other groups have been collecting data on how much water we’ve used, how many seeds we planted, how much land area we have used and how we have affected the environment in a positive way. Although our pollinators have not yet been placed outside, they have started to grow indoors and we will be transferring them as soon as possible. Due to the ongoing cold weather in our area, we have not been able to transfer any of our plants outdoors. However, we hope to start this at the end of May.

Reflection & Celebration

Throughout the project, we have encountered a few obstacles along the way and have worked hard to overcome them in multiple ways. The biggest obstacle we had to overcome was not having enough soil. With one of our students’ critical thinking skills, we were able to overcome the problem by using some of the soil from our outdoor garden bed. Another problem came with trying to get our seeds to germinate, some seeds were not germinating, so they had to be replanted, putting us behind schedule. One big issue was our Canadian weather, it wasn’t always cooperative and pushed our transplant timing back by at least two weeks. Of course, our solution was to wait, and at the time of this writing, we hope to be transplanting within a few days. Many lessons were learned, with the biggest one being to always be prepared for the unexpected and to adjust and adapt as needed.

In the future, we plan to continue this project. The grade 7’s this year hope to take over the project as this year’s class did from the last. Our project will continue to educate others in our society, along with fulfilling the United Nations goals that have yet to be achieved. These goals require a global commitment, and we believe that we can help to do our part, one step at a time. We thank the LSF for their funding and have put it to good use to build a better future for coming generations.

As we look back on the project, we have been able to celebrate our gains and losses as valuable learning experiences. We have learned the valuable lesson of working within time constraints and that not everything goes as planned. Weather has been unpredictable and we are patiently waiting to see the project come to fruition. Many life skills were learned and applied throughout the project, including budgeting, planting, nurturing and the commitment required. While we haven’t completed the project yet, we have seen the “fruits” of our labour, and we look forward to continuing this project in the coming years.