Troup Tastes From The Garden

Troup elementary students this week picked lettuce and parsley they grew and found out how great they taste in a tortilla snack.

That happened Tuesday at Harvest Day, the latest chapter in a blossoming partnership between the Common Ground Schoolyards program and the pre-K‑8 Augusta Lewis Troup School.

The Common Ground Schoolyards program creates gardens, schoolyard habitats, and outdoor classrooms at schools around town. (Click here to read a story about the creation of a recent garden at Reginald Mayo pre-school.)

Last spring the program piloted its first ongoing effort at Troup school with an eight-week education series. Environmental educator Melissa Gibbons and Schoolyards Program Manager Robyn Stewart worked with students over those weeks to develop a garden and outdoor learning space in an unused enclosed greenspace at the school.

Gibbons led small classes of students in lessons about building and gardening after the students helped put together two garden beds, a dig garden, and a life under logs space.

This fall Gibbons returned to continue the weekly learning lessons for eight classes, pre‑K through fourth grade, every Tuesday at Troup.

As an outdoor learning specialist/environmental educator, Gibbons is tasked with running the nature-based day program while also showing teachers how the space can be used for academic, social and emotional lessons and activities.

Throughout the school year, Gibbons plans to engage the students with projects upgrading the garden like staining the picnic tables, planting ferns, and decorating the space with school art.

On Tuesday, this reporter watched Gibbons teach four classes her Harvest Day lesson. The students learned about harvesting, eating fresh foods, and the living things that help gardens flourish.

While in groups, students buried decomposing leaves in the dig bed and threaded together fall garlands made of orange and brown leaves.

During a first-grade class’s outdoor lesson, Gibbons took small groups of the students outside the garden space to collect leaves off the ground. The students raced each other to see who could pick up the most leaves as Gibbons counted down slowly.

“We’re back with fresh leaves,” said one kindergartener, who then dumped his full bucket into the garden’s dig bed.

The dig bed group then raced to bury the piles of leaves under the soil as fast as possible. Some found centipedes and grubs on their digging journeys.

The students buried the leaves in the dig bed to provide the worms going into hibernation with food, Gibbons said.

“What happens when the worms wake up?” Gibbons asked.

“They wiggle. They eat. And poop,” said one first grader.

Gibbons reminded the students that the worm poop would help plants grow and make the soil rich.

Tuesday’s lesson also engaged the students’ senses as Gibbons taught them how to harvest lettuce and parsley from the garden beds.

The students each gently plucked a lettuce and parsley leaf. ​“We weren’t picking these leaves for the worms today. They’re for us to eat,” Gibbons said.

The students laughed nervously as Gibbons gave them tortilla chips and ranch dressing to eat with their vegetable leaves for a fresh snack.

Before tasting the new combination, some gave it a sniff. ​“I’m not sure I’m going to like this,” said one student.

After watching Gibbons taste her treat, many of the students followed. Reactions ranged from ​“I like this a lot!” to ​“I’d only eat this if I was camping.”

Gibbons congratulated the class for trying something new.

Additionally, the group took down the garden’s spring decorations to put up the students’ handmade fall garlands.

While threading a garland with her fourth-grade class, 9‑year-old Reshana picked up a yellow leaf and looked at it closely before making a hole in it for her thread

“What is this?” she asked Stewart after noticing a small black lump on the leaf.

“You found a slug!” Stewart responded.

Reshana watched the slug move slowly along the leaf, leaving behind a trail of slime. With an occasional pet and poke to the slug, Reshana decided to name it Rocky.

She showed her teacher Monica Carmo, who has been teaching at Troup for the past eight years.

Carmo volunteered her fourth-grade class for the weekly outdoor lesson by Gibbons to help break up their daily tight schedule, she said. ​“It’s been hard to be outside when we’re catching up on so much stuff,” she said.

Gibbons is also a weekly educator at Bishop Woods School for the schoolyards program. Over the years she has taught at more than 20 schools for the initiative.

“These repeated visits give them the chance to watch the seasons change,” Stewart said. ​“They can connect with the space and its transitions as they grow themselves.”