Planting Seeds of Knowledge and Health

Kemp Mill Teachers, Students Try Hand at Elementary Garden

Six-year-olds Adalila Bonilla, right, and Marcos Decena, left, tend a plot. Teacher John Mahler started the garden to promote good nutrition. (Photos By Bill O'leary -- The Washington Post)

When teacher John Mahler first offered figs to his first-graders during class snack time at Kemp Mill Elementary School in Silver Spring, he had few takers. Most of the students didn't even know what they were. But today, when given a choice, half the kids gladly reach for the once-foreign food.

Now Mahler is moving his class outdoors to guide students toward sound dietary choices by exposing them to a variety of tasty, healthful foods. Together with teacher Tanya Moreno, who also instructs two first-grade classes in English and Spanish, Mahler has begun a school vegetable garden.

Mahler's goal is straightforward. If children learn more about vegetables through planting seeds, watering plots, nurturing seedlings and reaping a harvest, they will grow familiar with them and be more likely to eat them. It's a lesson he wants the students to take home.

"One day they'll be in the grocery store and they'll say, 'We have these at school,' " Mahler said. "Maybe the mom will say, 'Oh, I didn't know you liked these.' That's the leap I want to make."

Although some county schools have flower gardens, Montgomery County public schools spokeswoman Kate Harrison said the county's facilities office isn't aware of any other school with a student-cultivated vegetable garden.

The garden idea sprang from Mahler's concern over reports of rising childhood obesity rates in the United States. After reading about the problem, Mahler brainstormed with family and friends last summer and decided to eliminate junk foods -- those high in sugar, fat or salt and low in nutrients -- from his classroom snack repertoire this school year.

After finding grocery stores with good produce prices, Mahler began bringing in fresh fruit and other healthful snacks such as popcorn for students in his class and in the after-school soccer program that he began three years ago to help students get more exercise. He said buying fruit requires a bit more planning but isn't more expensive than purchasing bulk packages of chips or cookies.

The reaction from students at Kemp Mill -- a pre-K through fifth-grade school with a large minority population where 30 percent of the students speak English as a second language -- has convinced Mahler that kids are more than willing to eat healthful, nutritious foods. It's adults who are failing by offering poor choices.

"It has nothing to do with what they will eat," said Mahler, who has seen students devour two and three fresh oranges at soccer practice and consume a huge vegetable platter, left over from a party, that he brought into school one day. "It has to do with what we are serving them."

The jump from eating healthful snacks to growing them came last school year, when Mahler had his students plant tomatoes, cilantro and chili peppers in peanut butter jars on classroom windowsills. The children were so enthusiastic about the plants' growth that this year, after consulting with principal Nancy C. Evans and others, Mahler made the leap to an outdoor garden. Last month, he gathered volunteers on weekends to begin the laborious process of constructing raised beds out of lumber and dirt on a hillside outside the school.

Some of the garden's funding comes out of the school's maintenance budget. Evans and Mahler hope private donations will cover the more than $4,000 cost of a fence to enclose the garden, which lies near a large grassy area used by neighborhood children for weekend recreation.

"This project goes way beyond nutrition," said Evans. She said the garden teaches students vocabulary as well as the value of experiential learning and cooperating toward a common goal. The garden also builds background knowledge, she said.

The Kemp Mill garden reflects the trend in some parts of the country to entice people to eat fresher, locally grown, seasonal produce to improve their diets, build community and become more connected to their food supplies and the environment.

It's a movement that has spilled over into schools. One of the first efforts began over a decade ago in Berkeley, Calif., where chef Alice Waters, owner of Chez Panisse Restaurant and Cafe, helped found the nonprofit Edible Schoolyard cooking and gardening program at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School. An abandoned asphalt lot was turned into an organic garden where students today cultivate and harvest fruits and vegetables, which they cook in a "kitchen classroom" and eat during meals with their teachers.

Regionally, a few schools have embarked on similar projects. Columbia Elementary School in Fairfax County has a National Wildlife Federation-endorsed habitat where fifth-graders will be planting vegetables and a science teacher plans to hold an after-school gardening and healthful eating club. In Prince George's County, students at Langley Park-McCormick Elementary School plan to plant vegetables later this spring through a collaborative effort with the University of Maryland. In Alexandria, some city public schools have outdoor habitats that include vegetable gardens, birdfeeders and turtles.

In Mahler's and Moreno's classrooms, the excitement on a recent planting day was evident. It's too soon to tell if the garden project will translate into healthier diets, but for now the students eagerly shouted out the Spanish words for vegetables pictured on seed packets held up by Mahler, who purposefully included snow peas and radishes among the more familiar tomatoes, peppers and corn. They wrote four-step planting lessons in pencil, stuck labels on popsicle sticks to make garden stakes and marched single file up the hill holding three seeds apiece in tiny Dixie cups.

As they knelt by the garden beds, about to stick their fingers into the dirt and drop the seeds down the hole, the way Mahler had instructed, several students spoke of flower and vegetable gardens they had at home. One girl pointed out a caterpillar. Another worried about being sprayed by the water hose. Mostly, though, they talked about the end result.

"It's fun because when the vegetable grows, it's healthy," said Leila Gilbert-Rivera, who planted corn. "And maybe you can eat it!"

For more information about the school's garden, go tohttp://www.mcps.k12.md.us/schools/kempmilles. Additional information on school gardens can be found athttp://www.edibleschoolyard.org.