Bear Creek students plant garden, reap knowledge
LAKEWOOD – Students at Bear Creek K-8 cultivate a lesson plan guaranteed to make them hunger for more.
For two years the students have planted a garden on school grounds, and now they are reaping the benefits by adding a weekly Youth Farmer’s Market to sell their produce and that of some other Colorado farmers.
They had plenty of customers at Thursday’s opening day of the market and the customers had plenty of choices: ripe red tomatoes, onions, lettuce, melons, herbs, carrots, turnips, squash and more.
All were as fresh as the excited young farmers who beamed from behind the vegetable counter.
“I just harvested a little bit today with the kids and they were so excited to be out there,” said Christine Harvey. “They have so much fun. Look at them. They are so excited right now just being out here and standing around.”
Harvey and Valarie McCoy organized the garden program a couple of years ago. Each has two children in the early grades at Bear Creek and they thought the garden would offer a chance to teach the pupils the benefits of a healthy diet.
“We want to teach kids where their food comes from, and it is not from a brown paper bag you get at the drive-through,” Harvey said. “Last year we did a ratatouille garden. How many kids do you know who will eat eggplant? Every kid in first grade, which is probably 160 students, ate it and I didn’t have one complaint.”
That amazed some parents, but not Harvey and McCoy.
They liked it because “they grew it, and then they picked it and then they cooked it,” Harvey said.
The garden – which is a collaborative effort with Slow Food Denver, Denver Urban Gardens, Learning Landscapes and the school – has grown along with its use as an educational tool.
From science to math to language arts, the school’s faculty is finding more and more ways to work the garden – and now the farmer’s market – into lesson plans.
The youngest pupils plant seeds, nurture them and watch them grow, logging the progress in their garden journals. They also plant flowers in the spring, and then take them home as surprise Mother’s Day gifts.
Students in the middle grades at the Kindergarten through 8th Grade school transplant the seedlings their younger schoolmates sprouted and nourished. They also help the older students make and maintain the compost that feeds the gardens, learning a bit of hands-on science.
And now that the farmer’s market is open at the school, all the kids are working on the harvest. The younger students pick the crops and the older ones get to learn about the economics of their agricultural enterprise as they operate the market. They make change, restock the produce counter and deal with customers.
Last spring, they sold their excess seedlings and some Colorado-grown flowers at a plant sale at the school.
For the next few Thursdays, the students will staff the Youth Farmer’s Market next to the parking lot at the school, 9601 W. Dartmouth Place. The market opens at 2 p.m. and closes at 4 p.m. every Thursday through Oct. 15.
Proceeds from the market are plowed back into the school’s “Seed to the Table” program and helps maintain the garden.
