5th Graders Learn How to Grow Their Own Food
This March through May, I have been co-teaching with Ms. Pope of Friendship Blow Pierce elementary to learn why growing our own food is important and experience at least one crop from seed to plate. We started by learning how long it takes for common fruits and vegetables to grow in D.C. and connected it to math by calculating estimated harvest dates for their favorite vegetables. Students then got to know some seeds, examining the differences and competing in a guessing game. The 5th graders planted lettuce and radishes from seed on March 28th that we harvested for salads May 16th (which means our estimated 40-50 days to harvest was correct!). They also planted collard greens and strawberries from seedlings.
We moved on to learning about soil, which included doing a soil shake to see the layers of sand, silt, and clay and taking a soil sample of their courtyard to send it to a UMass Laboratory so they could test their soil for Lead and nutrient content. (It’s under the “safe” amount, though no amount of Lead is safe, which is why we put weed block between the soil and filled the raised beds with store bought soil). Students constructed three metal beds to make a U-shape growing area, filled them with small logs, topsoil, and compost and planted sweet potato slips and watermelon, bean and sorrel seeds.
We will end our series together with a visit from Farmer Tolu of OlaLekan Farm in Upper Marlboro, MD. Students came up with questions to ask Tolu and will learn more about her experience as a young Black farmer making her life’s passion her work. She is currently raising funds to pilot an apprenticeship program this season.
Through this 8-week series, the 5th graders had an extremely tactile (and fun!) learning experience and now know what it takes to begin to grow their own food.
–Allie
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