After a month of thought and hard work, Burton Elementary School students have created a campus greenhouse in which youngsters will grow regular and hydroponic flowers and vegetables to eat and sell.
Friday they milled around the school gym as they received instruction on their next step in the process.
May was FabLab month for Burton Elementary School. Friday third-grade students hauled buckets of water and filters to the small, clear building attached to the back wall of the school to complete the project started May 7.
That was when Andrea Lane, director of the FabLab from the Great Lakes Science Center, first visited all of the students at Burton Elementary to introduce the concept and explain how each grade level would participate.
The FabLab, a long, colorful trailer full of equipment such as vinyl cutters, 3-D printers, lasers and a CNC machine, took up residence in the school parking lot. It provided a place where youngsters could design and build the components of the green house, according to Lane.
Lane, a graduate of MC2 STEM High School, helped the students to decide what they needed to put together a system to nurture their plants. Each grade took on part of the planning and implementation of the project, said Dawn Nielsen, district special education and curriculum director.
They even made tools like garden rakes and scoops, developed the water filtration system and built stools so the kindergarten students will be able to reach the shelves in the greenhouse, she said.
“It’s a student-led, student-driven project,” Nielsen said, and teamwork was emphasized throughout. For instance, the second-graders put together filters for rain water and city water and the third-graders took them to the greenhouse for installation.
Different youngsters within the group were given different jobs, a teacher said, and had to trust each other to follow through.
So the learning extended beyond the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematic learning concept, but the STEM is still a vital part of the school’s focus.
“Every one of the home rooms went through some part of the project,” said school Principal Mandy Randles. “It’s been nice watching the whole thing unfold.”
Early in the program students in fourth, fifth and sixth grades met with representatives from Great Lakes Growers and Kinetico, two local businesses, to learn what it takes to build and maintain a green house. Geauga Growth Partners were also involved in getting the project off the ground.
Randles said Lane is an expert at making sure the tasks assigned each grade fit with their abilities and at explaining what, how and why they need to do their parts.
Lane noted she was involved with the FabLab idea during high school and plans to attend Ohio State University in the fall.
The trailer at Burton Elementary is only one of two based at the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland, Nielsen said, and Berkshire is the first district in Geauga County to bring one in.
“It didn’t have to travel very far to get here,” Randles said.
The program was funded by a $7,000 grant from the Ohio Continuous Comprehensive Improvement Plan, she said, adding the funds may only be spent on learning projects such as the greenhouse.