The Project Learning Garden phone rang late on a Friday afternoon. “We have mushrooms growing in our garden beds,” the voice on the other end said, “should we be concerned?”
At the Monday morning PLG meeting, Captain Planet Foundation CEO, Leesa Carter-Jones, shared, “that means the soil is especially fertile. What a wonderful teaching moment. Students learn not to eat or pick any mushroom growing in the garden. But to let an adult know so they can research to identify.”
For over 750 schools across the United States, every day in the garden is a day of learning. A question, confusion, or even the loss of a plant is not a “failure,” but an opportunity to explore why the plant failed, and what can be tried differently in the future. Teaching does not stop with “how to grow a garden,” it ripples into science, biology, horticulture, social emotional learning, and even a greater sense of self-agency.
That Friday afternoon call came from 2nd year PLG Garden Coordinator, Keziah Silva, at Amqui K-8 Magnet School in Nashville, TN, a PLG installation funded by Cox Enterprises. Recently, Captain Planet Foundation team members dropped by for a visit.
It was late April. The Amqui garden was burgeoning with lettuce, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers and more. Pollinators were abundant. Green beans were climbing up an adorable kindergarten-designed trellis in a garden pot.
However, it was Keziah’s visions for the garden and the students that were most inspiring:
Amqui’s garden club has been a really exciting development for the students and staff. We have been busy planting tons of vegetables, and planning for some big things next year. It is important to me that the students in the garden club are a big part of planning. When we began planning how to use the raised garden beds, our middle school students started to do research on which plants are native to Tennessee and in our local area. They also drew diagrams of how we could lay out our plants.
I had a group of students one day in our club that decided to list community events that we could be a part of when our garden was ready for harvest. This demonstrates that this is not just a random that I applied for a grant for, but it is the kids garden. We are excited for our first big community event, which would be our fall festival. In collaboration with other members of our team at Amqui, we are excited for how the garden will be a part of that, where we make salsa from the tomatoes, jalapeños, and other vegetables that we are growing in our garden. The goal for that event is to also grow a pumpkin patch so that families can join us and purchase a mini pumpkin. And that was a child’s idea too!
We are very excited and hopeful to see how having an abundant garden in Amqui K-8 Magnet can make our school an even more special place.
- Keziah Silva
