Sitting in a half-circle around Paula McPheeters, a teacher at Ochoa Magnet Elementary School, students wait excitedly to see what they will select from their school garden that day.
In a white chair next to a faux fireplace with family portraits on the mantel, McPheeters uses a blue marker to spell out words to her preschoolers.
“S-O-I-L,” the 10 students spell aloud as the letters are written on the board. “That spells soil,” they say with broad smiles.
McPheeters praises them. She has them spell out lentils, garbanzo, compost and worm; things the students will find in the garden just around the corner from room 13.
Ochoa Elementary is one of the five schools that participate in the University of Arizona’s School of Geography and Development School Garden Program.With the help of UA interns and different partnerships, the garden program enables Tucson teachers to sustain school gardens.
The interns provide support and labor to help develop the garden in a time when teachers are really strapped for time and resources, says Sarah Moore, assistant professor for the School of Geography and Development.
Joey Orozco, a student sitting by McPheeters, scratches his face and thinks as he helps “Ms. Paula” spell out words.“I like planting chili,” he says. After it’s picked from the garden, he takes it home for family dinners.
With more than 98 percent of Ochoa students qualifying for free or reduced-cost lunches, the program benefits both students and families.
Students are able to make salads and soup in class, and parents can take food home. When there is a surplus of food, it is donated to the Community Food Bank and soup is taken to the Casa Maria soup kitchen.
Julianna Gonzales, Joey’s classmate, says she likes planting strawberries, watering the garden and saving peels for compost.Angelita Gonzales, her mother, calls the program amazing.
“It’s lovely to know that the children can learn something so wonderful to take with them as they grow,” she says. “I hear her talk to her siblings to let them know that she needs to save compost… she explains what it is and she’s only five years old.”
Moore says the garden program helps make soil science less abstract.
“I think the children are realizing that gardening is certainly about planting seeds, watering and pulling weeds,” McPheeters says.
“But it’s also about love, which is about being dedicated and responsible to this commitment we’ve made.”
McPheeters says she’s seen a change in some of her students. She says the garden really helps them develop into kind people.
“I think the garden has been transformational on the scientific end and in relationships,” she says.
The preschoolers read books and play with dominoes as Amy Mellor, a first year UA garden program intern, helps sort bright packets of assorted vegetable seeds.
Partnerships like the food bank not only provide intern training, but the packets as well.
Arizona Tree and Landscape Service Inc., Civano Nursery, Tanque Verde Farms and Mesquite Valley Growers Nursery provide landscaping, soil, compost and plants.
“We spend more on an inmate than we do on our students,” McPheeters says. “Because of this, I feel that I depend on partnerships. They make it happen.”
Without the partnerships and support, Moore says schools would struggle to fund innovative projects such as the garden program.
Mellor says the program is a good way for students to express themselves if they don’t really like the traditional classroom setting.
McPheeters’ students go into the garden with Mellor in pairs. Mellor tells them to pick the “big and dry” peas.
She helps them interact with each other as they participate in hands-on learning.
“You give them a task and they do it together,” Moore says. “It really helps with social skill development.”
Some students, like Sewailo Vai Sevoi, are quiet as they pick their peas and put them into a white strainer to be washed. Others, like Angela Isais, sing aloud with the enjoyment of being outside of the classroom.
“It influences every child here,” McPheeters says. “It certainly has influenced me as a human being and as a teacher.”
