2001 Mini Grant Winners

First Cycle: April 2001

Mini-Grant 1: "Ready Set Grow!!"

The "Ready Set Grow!!" project is a multi-disciplinary, hands-on learning project that focuses on growing plants both conventionally and hydroponically. The discussion about this project has generated a great deal of interest with the family and consumer science teacher and the fifth grade science teachers. With funding, we will reach all students in the fifth grade and teach them how to produce food both in a conventional setting and with a hydroponic system. The goal is to fully integrate this into the science and language arts curriculum.

John King, Family & Consumer Science Department, Rogers Middle School, 43 Highland Street, Lowell, MA 01852

September 2001 through January 2002

Mini-Grant 2: "Chickens and the Growing Cycle"

The spring trimester theme for the Kindergarten and grade one students at the Conservatory Lab Charter School will be farms. Three major goals are 1) to make students aware of how living things grow and develop, 2) to promote an understanding of how both humans and animals develop, and what living things need to survive, and 3) to make students alert to how valuable farms are in our lives. Units will include Farm Activities, Study of Animals, Study of Fruits and Vegetables, Health and Nutrition, and Chickens and the Growing cycle. Standards and goals taken directly from the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks are incorporated into each lesson and activity. As we proceed through this trimester highlighting farms and their importance in our lives, we are requesting a grant of $800 from Massachusetts Agriculture in the Classroom, Inc. for one of the primary projects of this trimester, Chickens and the Growing Cycle.

Mary Street Executive Director, Conservatory Lab Charter School, 50 West Broadway, South Boston, MA 02127

Spring trimester 2001 theme is farm, embryology will be one unit.

Mini-Grant 3: "4-H Urban Stewards - Taking Action, growing Community, Building a Greener Future"

Our request for a grant of $1,500 to be used for transportation to local farms, horticulture, composting operations and tree farms represents one part of a larger initiative currently underway and funded by Mass. State Strengthening grant, the Mass. 4-H foundation and UMass Extension/4-H Youth and Family Development Program. The initiative has been designed to increase awareness, build a basic foundation of knowledge and practice of sound and safe agricultural, horticultural and community forestry knowledge and skills, foster relationships between low-income urban youth ages 8-17 and the people in local agriculture, green industry and government, and increase the youth's understanding of the training, rewards, and careers available to them in agriculture and related green professions. Through hands-on community-based work, learning good agricultural practices, educational career opportunities workshops with agricultural and green industry professionals, farmer visits, and field strips to farm, horticultural and composting operations, youth will gain a better understanding of what it takes to grow food, produce a crop (be it flowers, vegetables, fruit or street trees), the importance to urban people of agriculture in Massachusetts, the need to maintain a sustainable agricultural system, and the need for their leadership as powerful urban environmental stewards.

Rita Renee Toll-DuBois, 4-H Youth and Family Development Program, 209 Green Street, 2nd Floor, P.O. Box 1196 Jamaica Plain, MA 02130

March 4, 2001 and continues through August 25, 2001

Second Cycle: September 2001

Mini-Grant 1: Bio Sphere III

In this project students in the Agriscience/Horticulture program will set up the school's greenhouse (25' by 42') like a miniature version of the Biosphere II project in Arizona. Half of the greenhouse will remain with benches for plant propagation and the other half will be kept open which will allow better access for visiting school groups. In that area the students will set up demonstrations of hydroponics, aquaculture, composting, and small animal husbandry.

Russell J. Anderson Horticulture Program Burncoat Senior High School 179 Burncoat Street Worcester, MA 01606

once established will be on-going

Mini-Grant 2: "A Three Season Study of Massachusetts Agriculture"

This academic year, the sixty grade one students of the Franklin School in Brockton will immersed in the study of apples, pumpkins, cranberries, maple sugaring, planting and growing both a vegetable and a flower garden, as well as the farm environment. In addition to classroom study, product sampling, record keeping and formal writing, the children will visit an apple orchard, a cranberry bog, a maple sugaring site and a farm. While there, the students will develop a better understanding of the processes involved in the growing of food and the unique environment of each product. The classes will comprehend the importance of the farmer, as well as the economic dispersion, while following the crop from harvesting to market.

Lorraine M. Aveni First Grade Teacher Franklin School 59 Sawtell Avenue Brockton, MA 02301

Fall of 2001 and spring and summer of 2002

Third Cycle: November 2001

Mini-Grant 1: "Project Roots"

The Montessori School of the Angels, Inc. is a non-profit, Montessori School dedicated to the belief that education must meet the needs of the whole child; encompassing mind, body and spirit. Montessori education is based on the premise that a child has an innate desire to learn and will learn given the proper environment. We at the Montessori School of the Angels are initiating a unique component to our 7th and 8th grade curriculum with an educational greenhouse project called Roots. This project will offer our students a greenhouse environment where they will grow plants utilized in the Montessori classroom and sell these plants to other Montessori schools throughout New England.

Mrs. Alice Levesque, Principal Montessori School of the Angels, Inc. 1180 American Legion Highway Westport, Massachusetts 02790

November 2001 through April 2002

Mini-Grant 2: "Square Foot Container Gardening"

Tower School seeks a Massachusetts Agriculture in the Classroom, Inc. Mini-grant to enhance an existing gardening project. Utilizing the square foot gardening method, a model designed by Mel Bartholomew to maximize space and minimize maintenance, thirty two students will each design their own square foot garden. Space limitations for starting seedlings indoors and a desire to integrate a composting component into the program area two driving forces for requesting grant money. Students will be fully involved in the planning and planting process, learning a variety of math and science skills in addition to developing an appreciation for the time, effort, pitfalls, and rewards of vegetable gardening. Throughout the project, instruction will focus on linking the growing process the students are undertaking at school with the food children eat from the grocery store.

Jen Mallette and Susie Schneider Fifth Grade Teachers Tower School 75 West Shore Drive Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945

March through June 2002

Mini-Grant 3: "Playground Paradise"

East Taunton Elementary School is undertaking the project "Playground Paradise". All classrooms, grades K-4 will engage in the planning, planting and maintaining of gardens. Gardens will be an extension of the Science Curriculum, and will be based on several themes such as: Harry Potter Garden, Colonial Garden, Herbal Garden and Butterfly Garden. This project will provide the children with an opportunity to recognize where plants come from, how to maintain them, and the difficulties farmers face when planting and maintaining crops.

Janet Motta East Taunton Elementary School 5 8 R Stevens Street East Taunton, Massachusetts 02718

January through June 2002