2nd Place Organic Silver Award
Tongue River Elementary School
Ranchester, Wyoming

   Sky Boy, one of our Native American students, could not decide what kind of plants to buy with his $3.00 at the greenhouse. The bus was waiting for him and he was under the gun. It was a rather confusing task because he was supposed to get a vegetable and a companion plant for his very own plot. His friend offered to help and together they purchased a pumpkin and some marigolds to keep the bugs away. Thus began an adventure for both boys from planting to harvesting, working side by side and becoming garden fanatics and good friends.

   The boys worked in tandem with 81 other students from kindergarten through the Eighth grades to complete another season of an enrichment that included math, reading, writing and social skills at grade levels. For example, Sky Boy's money came from the dollars earned from the previous Third Grade Farmer's Market. When school began last August, both Third Grade and First Grade students carried on the maintenance, harvesting and selling aspects of the Summer School garden project. It is a perfect blending of programs and gives teachers an excellent environment for their botany classes and money lessons. An added bonus is watching the students who participated in summer school become confident class leaders with their acquired gardening knowledge.

   Gardening season begins in mid June. Volunteers prep the soil due to the short season time crunch here in Wyoming. Students are assigned their own plots and are able to purchase their choice of seeds and plants for their plots. They are allowed to make errors, for much of gardening is trial and error. This year's focus way to use recycled materials to help an extremely limited budget. Old carpet for weed cloth, milk jugs for cloches, cutoff laundry jugs for buckets, scrap lumber to build a worm box, and even old Crow tipi poles for our gourd tipi were used. Lady beetles were studied and released for natural pest control. Many cultural lessons were a benefit from using authentic Crow tipi poles. For example, we learned to face the entrance to the east and we could never burn the sacred home poles.

   Our garden is permanently located in our Fourth Grade teacher's backyard. During school sessions, all students have lessons right under our "Learning Tree" on site. We spend some of the two hours with core curricula lessons and at least one hour with garden maintenance. Students are entirely responsible for their own plot during school time. Grade levels rotate each day. It was fun to watch the Kindergarten and First Grade classes worry about the older student's plants drying out. They would willingly water them. Neighboring senior citizens well versed in local gardening experience come during class time and work shoulder to shoulder with students. They enjoy the students company while they mentor. Seniors also volunteer to water and are most welcome to enjoy the harvest. Classroom teachers volunteer weekly to weed and do heavy maintenance.

   The Third Grade class recently finished the final harvest. We had a pickup truck full of produce. They made flower vases, gourd baskets and arranged a large vegetable stand. Many classrooms enjoyed fresh watermelon and cantaloupe. Sky Boy and his friend proudly harvested four huge pumpkins from his vine. He decided to give one to each classroom and kept just one for himself.