N.B. students get their hands dirty learning about gardening

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The City of North Battleford’s environmental manager Tammy McCormick taught them about Bokashi, a natural method of composting.

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“I’m really excited about this composting program, the Bokashi method, because I really think that it’s something that is a manageable size of a project that just about every teacher could take on,” Good said.

After the presentation, the students mixed the composting materials themselves and started their first pail with scraps they’d saved over the week.

Once the pail is full, students will dump their compost into trenches outside the school to grow vegetables and herbs in the spring. The garden beds were built with the help of the industrial arts teacher and students.

Bokashi composting is the latest gardening initiative by the class.

They run several micro-businesses, including a bread program which provides subscribers a fresh loaf of bread a week and giving fresh herbs to the Kihiw restaurant for their dishes.

The newest addition to the school garden is a greenhouse, which was funded by the school, school division and grants from outside sources.

Good said her class and possibly another special education class will do the day-to-day gardening in the greenhouse, but other classes will likely use it for workshops.

“A lot of curriculum can very easily be incorporated into garden work with students,” she said. “It’s got lots of science, it’s going to incorporate social studies concepts and mathematics, language arts. All of those things can be incorporated into garden-based projects and the students are actually outside too, they’ve got their hands in the dirt and they’re learning such valuable life skills.”

The concepts behind Good’s programming are inspired by her time in Finland learning about their school system, which has been hailed as one of the best in the world.

Although it would take a significant amount of time to implement, Good said she wants to see Canada implement Finland’s universal lunch program.

A province-wide effort to implement a food program is also on her agenda after her class grew enough vegetables, such as kale, to make an enjoyable salad.

 “It just shows people that our food can come from right around us and it’s a very satisfying feeling to make that happen,” she said. “It’s very empowering.”

Sarah Rae is battlefordsNOW’s court and crime reporter. She can be reached at Sarah.Rae@jpbg.ca or tweet her @sarahjeanrae.