The weather may be growing cooler, but students at Boys Home are hanging on to the growing season a little bit longer. As part of a unit on plants and farming, Ms. Anderson’s middle school class has been busy practicing their gardening skills.

The unit started with learning about plant cells. From there, lessons grew into learning about seeds, plants, and farming. Students studied everything that a farm needs, such as soil, land, water, and a variety of different farming methods, as well as the causes and effects of pollution and erosion. Each student also had the chance to design the layout for a farm. Finally, to pull the whole unit together, students created farm webs and presented them to the students in elementary school. The farm webs are pictorial representations that show all the different factors that need to come together to bring healthy food to our tables. In a society where we are increasingly detached from the food we eat, the farm webs are a good reminder of how all the different people and industries work together to grow and distribute food across the country.

 

 

In the garden, each student prepared his own raised bed by pulling the weeds and evening out the soil. Keeping in mind that they were planting in October, students planted cool weather crops, including spinach, arugula, lettuce, and collard greens. During recess, many of the students would go out to the garden to check on their plants; one student even made sure to talk to his plants and encourage them regularly! Even though the unit is coming to an end, there’s a good chance the students will continue to care for their gardens until the cool weather finishes them off.