There’s a New Learning Garden in Our Neighborhood
The children of Magnolia Woods Elementary have a Learning Garden to enrich their instruction this year, thanks to a Toolbox for Education Grant from Lowe’s Home Improvement, helping hands in the Magnolia Woods neighborhood, and the expertise of LSU AgCenter volunteers. The garden will be used as a hands-on teaching tool for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) activities in keeping with the school’s STEM mission.
Pictured (left to right) are Lowe’s Siegen assistant manager Aaron Moses, STEM teacher Armetta Wright, principal Kim Dipalma, and store manager Mike Pitt.
Initial funding for the project, which has been in the planning stage for about a year, was provided by a $3,100 Toolbox for Education grant from the Lowe’s Foundation. Mike Pitt, manager of Lowe’s Siegen Lane store, and his assistant Aaron Moses, were on hand July 25 to help neighborhood volunteers and LSU AgCenter graduate students construct four large raised beds. The neighborhood volunteers returned on August 8 to fill the beds with the help of two LSU AgCenter faculty members, Drs. Steve Harrison and Kiki Fontenot.
The learning garden will expand in phases throughout the year to include a cluster of additional beds, a shaded outdoor classroom area, a small grove of citrus trees, composting bins. A butterfly garden also will be added in an area accessible to both Magnolia Woods students and neighborhood children. The Magnolia Woods Civic Association is also working the with faculty to arrange occasional after-hours gardening events that neighborhood children will be able to attend.
Neighbors Randy Macon and Sam Martin assembled the raised bed frames.
Magnolia Woods is one of the first East Baton Rouge Parish schools to establish a learning garden through the Toolbox for Education program, which has provided more than $42 million to schools nationwide over the past 10 years. “We’re excited to see how these teachers plan to get kids excited about math and science by getting them outside, tending plants,” Pitt says.
The three Baton Rouge-area Lowe’s stores have also offered to help with other service projects at the school.
Providing vision and leadership for the learning garden initiative are Magnolia Woods Principal Kim Dipalma and STEM resource coordinator Armetta Wright, who wrote the Toolbox for Education grant and will use the learning garden as a teaching tool in her STEM activities with multiple grades, throughout the day. Other Magnolia Woods teachers are incorporating gardening concepts into their instruction, as well.
Neighborhood volunteers filled and leveled the beds with the help of a front-end loader.
“We’ve planted small plots in the past,” Wright says. “The students grew radishes, green beans, lettuce, and potatoes last spring in a small flower bed in front of the school, but this garden will take things to a whole new level. Children—even those with learning disorders—discover that they can help plants grow, and their whole attitude toward school changes. They become much more engaged in learning in all areas.”
Dipalma is enthusiastic about the opportunities children of all ages will have for multisensory math and science activities that also acquaint the students with fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs. “Kindergarten students would run up to me last spring to show off the green beans they picked the and the radishes they dug,” she said. “It was probably the first time many of them had ever seen a radish, much less grown one. Imagine how excited they’ll be to have a real garden at their school!”
The Thompson family (left to right, Christian, dad Chad, Neala, and Jonathan) helped fill the raised beds.
The two LSU AgCenter members have been a vital resource, getting the garden off the ground, and will provide valuable expertise as the garden evolves. Harrison, professor of plant, environmental and soil sciences, is a key advisor and liaison with the Magnolia Woods Civic Association (MWCA) board of directors, of which he is a member. The garden was designed by Fontenot, an assistant professor and extension specialist who has developed school and community garden programs throughout the state. LSU Research Associate Kelly Arceneaux and graduate students Hugo Anzueto and Alejandro Castro helped construct the beds.
Among the Magnolia Woods residents who turned out to frame up and fill the beds were the Thompson family (Chad, Michelle, Christian, Jonathan, and Neala), Brenda and Randy Macon, Sam and Allyn Martin, Sylvia and Manuel Martinez, Michelle Babin, Jane Blackledge, Margaret Harrison, Rodney Magee, Susan Teddlie, and Jim Wilkins.
