VOLGA – Sioux Valley Elementary students filled garden beds they helped build on Friday morning as part of the Ground Works/SD Ag in the Classroom teaching garden program. Students filled their own soil buckets with shovels, helped use some power tools, and learned facts about soil and the organisms found in it.
“I asked them… how many of them had used a shovel before. Only one raised his hand!” said Cindy Heidelberger, executive director of education and outreach for Ground Works/SD Ag in the Classroom. The soil used in the beds was donated by the City of Brookings and Brandon Hope.
Watch out for the splash zone! On Tuesday, the second-, third- and fourth-grade classes prepared the soil in the beds for planting by measuring out sections and adding moisture to the soil. Each garden has a theme – Pizza Garden, Movie Night, and Fall Festival. Students of all classes and ages will have the opportunity to care for the garden of big beef tomatoes, oregano, Big Bertha peppers, onions, sunflowers, popcorn, pumpkins, and colored corn. “These teaching gardens and the partnership with Ground Works/SD Ag in the Classroom will augment already existing programs tailored to engaged student’s minds and bodies, empowering them to take an active role in their learning,” Heidelberger said in a news release.
After a tough spring in the school and the community, these teaching gardens will help build a bridge, bringing multiple generations together, building and filling multiple teaching garden beds, according to a news release from the organization. “The goal of education at Sioux Valley Elementary remains to make learning relevant, rigorous, and intellectually engaging. This teaching garden becomes the catalyst for hands-on learning in all STEM fields, as well as broadening an understanding of our food system and their place within it,” the release said.
