By Richard Cumptson and Mike Tellier
BengalNews Reporters
During the harsh months of winter, individuals that have gardens are forced to pack up shop. But for the students at School 30, they decided to just move things inside.
students at School 30, located at 21 Lowell St., are using a new growing trend known as vertical growing to grow their produce this year. According to The Vertical Farm, nearly 80 percent of the world’s population will live in urban centers by 2050, so many people have began using vertical growing as a way of conserving space.
This new way of growing produce was welcomed with open arms by the students of School 30.
"The new classroom garden has meant so much to the students at School 30,” said John Guzda, a classroom assistant at School 30. “Many of them have come up to me in class to talk about their enthusiasm for the project."
Up until this year, most of the students who took part in the vertical garden had little knowledge of how to sustain a garden, but with the help of their teacher and members of the PUSH organization, the students were able to learn a lot of the ins and outs to gardening.
“A lot of these kids who have grown up in the city, had little to no experience with planting and gardening,” Yax said. “But it was interesting to see them all learn how to garden the regular way, and also garden vertically, because there are some differences.”
The seventh and eighth grade students who participated in the project wanted the chance to be able to grow a garden inside during the winter.
“In the past, students have planted seeds inside the class and then when the winter was over, we would bring the plants outside, and plant them in the ground,” said PUSH community organizer Whitney Yax. “This year we really wanted to try something new and plant the garden inside.”
PUSH first became acquainted with School 30 when one of the teachers reached out to PUSH, asking for assistance in getting the students better involved within the community.
“We thought it was a great idea to get the kids involved in gardening since most of them had little experience in the area,” Yax said. “When we first started doing this the kids would just plant the seeds inside and then at the end of winter they could bring them outside and actually plant them, but the vertical garden idea has added a lot of excitement to this process.”
Vertical farming experts say the style of planting provides more available space, reduces food miles, iconserve water and energy resources and works sustainable with nature.
“I think that the students will do this again next year,” Yax said. “But right now we are really trying to get more faculty members involved with this because if for some reason this particular teacher happens to leave, we are going to need someone there to step in and help the kids with this.”
Edited by Kevin Freiheit
