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Students learn leadership, gardening |
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Tuesday, 18 September 2007 |
 The Edible Schoolyard, located at the Living Learning Center and founded by Watauga College Students, is a community garden run by a 30-student class. Anna Donlan
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by ASHLEY BENNERS
Lifestyles Reporter
What exactly is grown in the Edible Schoolyard?
The better question is what isn’t grown there.
The trek up the stone steps to the Living Learning Center just got a little more interesting.
Apple trees, berry bushes, kiwi, grapes, most vegetables, and shitake mushrooms are just a few of the many crops grown during the spring and summer along the hillside in the garden.
The Edible Schoolyard was inspired by a project in Berkeley, Calif., at Martin Luther King Middle School.
The garden was designed to integrate gardening with teaching children to make their own sustenance as opposed to buying.
In the spring of 2006, Watauga College director David E. Huntley worked
alongside senior interdisciplinary studies major Bill E. Schweig and
sophomore biology/ecology major Katelyn M. Hendricks to bring the
Edible Schoolyard to the LLC.
The garden is currently wrapping up its second growing season.
Presently, Marcus E. Taylor, a senior double major in sustainable
development and appropriate technology, and A. Whit Wright, a junior
sustainable development major, conduct an Edible Schoolyard class of 30
students.
“When Whit and I took over the class, we tried to focus more on
gardening education,” said Taylor. “When the project first took off,
the class focused more on fundraising, logistics and planning because
of the weather during second semester.
“This year, we wanted to explain things like why crops rot and why
compost and mulch are used, because some students in the class don’t
know a lot about gardening.”
Throughout the semester, students research a topic of their choice and
then work in groups to employ ideas in the actual garden.
Members of the class are also required to attend work days in the garden on Saturdays.
Both Taylor and Wright had small gardens growing up, but it was the idea of the Edible Schoolyard that really got them hooked.
“The first semester of my sophomore year, I took a class on
agro-ecology and I learned a lot about sustainable development and
farming,” said Taylor. “The Edible Schoolyard gave me an opportunity to
have land in the palm of my hand to learn and care about.”
Wright was also excited by the idea of a project in sustainable development.
“Though I had interest in gardening, working in a community garden for
seven years, I think I learned the most about it by just jumping in to
the Edible Schoolyard project,” he said.
Already, Taylor and Wright feel that the semester is off to a good start.
This week, the class was awarded $1,000 from Students United for a Responsible Global Environment (SURGE).
“Now we have potential to expand. One third of the garden has raised
beds, which make defined paths with planks on the side and a raised
soil area for planting. We want to finish building more raised beds and
do more terracing, which is expensive,” Taylor said.
Also, the garden allots spaces for “adopt-a-plots,” which are areas of
the garden for any individual or group from campus or the community to
work with.
On Sept. 26, the fourth Semiannual Courtyard Concert will be held in the courtyard of the LLC from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.
The event features local bands and refreshments provided by the Edible Schoolyard class.
Taylor and Wright are enthusiastic about not only the year and growing season to come, but the future success of the garden.
Taylor and Wright said other residence halls are showing interest in starting their own gardens.
The students also presented a basket of produce from the garden to Chancellor Kenneth E. Peacock and gave him a personal tour.
“The class is all undergraduate students getting together,” Taylor
said. “There are no faculty, no staff. When we took over, we wanted to
keep it that way. We wanted a student run endeavor and when we pass it
on, we want it to be to kids who get off on gardening.”
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