In June, students in Lecinda Baker's third-grade class at Hans Herr Elementary School shared ice cream with mint tea and strawberries, two products of the school's garden that was added to campus this year. Baker and her fellow third-grade teachers incorporated the garden as an interactive learning activity during this past school year, giving the kids an opportunity to learn about the life cycle of plants as they cultivated various herbs and fruits.

At the beginning of the 2023-24 school year, third-graders at Hans Herr Elementary School begin a module that details the life cycle of plants and the monarch butterfly. Pennsylvania's educational guidelines require third-grade teachers to include the course in their curricula, but the school's new garden allowed teachers to utilize interactive activities to engage students with the material. During lessons, the budding gardeners added topsoil and fertilizer to repurposed garden beds before planting mint, milkweed, strawberries and other plants. The beds will house the fruits of their labor for years to come.

"Many people assume that our children have experiences in nature, and a number of them do. But there are many children who have never planted a seed before," Baker said. "We wanted them to have that experience of seeing the complete life cycle from planting to harvesting."

In addition to working in the garden during class, many third-graders volunteered to give up their recess time to pick strawberries. Several teachers also rewarded kids who showed good behavior by letting them leave the classroom to work in the garden. "Over and over again, I saw students get so much satisfaction from weeding, seeing the plants bloom and picking flowers to give to people," Baker said.

The garden was created with multiple raised beds that a former life skills teacher had used for a class before she retired. After years of inactivity, the third-grade teachers asked Hans Herr Elementary School's administration and parent-teacher organization to help fund a project to revitalize the garden. The school provided the soil to fill the beds, and the teachers acquired gardening tools, gloves and mulch with grant funding from the Lancaster County chapter of the Pennsylvania Association of School Retirees (PASR). The grant also allowed Baker and her students to purchase items from the Lampeter-Strasburg High School plant sale that was held by the agricultural department. The kids bought flowers and seeds to plant watermelons, cucumbers and tomatoes, which students in the extended-year program will harvest at the end of the summer.

"The garden has been a joint effort between the school district, the parent-teacher organization, the high school and the kids at Hans Herr," said Baker. "Everyone sees how valuable it is for students to experience."