Sustainability Spotlight: FCS classes growing ingredients year round

A basil dish made at North Star in a culinary class using produce from the gardens.

Across the district, high school Family Consumer Science classes have been introducing tower gardens in the classroom and have started conversations about the Farm to Table concept. A tower garden is a vertical growing system that uses a low-wattage pump to carry water to the top of the tower and allow it to trickle down over the exposed roots of the plants.  Observations of the collected harvest from tower gardens have led students to make connections about fresh produce compared to the produce with added preservatives at grocery stores, and has brought the processes of planting, growing and harvesting into the classroom. This idea came from a FCS teacher at North Star, Camelle Kinney, who ran a pilot tower garden at her school and then recommended it for all other schools. As of this academic year, all high schools now have their own tower gardens and so far, they have been a success!

Stacy Richmond, FCS teacher at Lincoln High, was surprised by how easy it was to get the tower garden up and running in only a couple of hours. She also portrayed the excitement from their first harvest, “We just had our first harvest of 6 gallon sized ziplock bags with a variety of lettuces, I could not believe the freshness!” At North Star, Kinney is planning to make the transition back to the tower garden for the winter months as her classes have been utilizing produce from the school’s outdoor garden while the weather is still nice. She also commented on the students’ reactions to the tower garden, “The students love it! Many often ask if they can taste something on it, even if it isn’t for the lab that day. I welcome that!”

Tower garden at Lincoln High.

Growing produce and spices, whether in raised beds or a tower garden, is a great opportunity to connect students to all of the steps involved in getting food from farm to table. Culinary classes at North Star and Lincoln High use everything grown in the gardens as ingredients to perform their food labs. Richmond stated, “The best part of the garden is being able to give our students access to fresh ingredients that they might not otherwise ever use.” Thank you to our Family and Consumer Science Department for giving these sustainable learning opportunities to our students!