At Oglethorpe Children’s Academy, learning doesn’t just happen at a desk. It’s happening in the dirt.
Tiny hands help press seeds into soil and reach into raised beds to turn compost, all part of the new STEM garden project designed to teach children where their food comes from, and help them develop healthier habits.
The project, funded in part through the Georgia Health Policy Center’s Georgia State Physical Activity and Nutrition (G-SPAN) initiative, will create a permanent garden and outdoor classroom for the academy’s pre-K students as part of its shift toward a Farm to Early Care and Education program.
The goal goes beyond growing vegetables. OCA owner Melanee McGee said the garden is about shaping lifelong attitudes toward food, health and learning.
“We’re trying to put in some fresh fruits, some fresh vegetables,” McGee said. “We’re just trying to go and expose the children to a variety of foods.”
The hands-on experience is the key to getting the kids excited about foods they may not usually want.
“If they're growing some carrots, and our little garden produces three little bundles of carrots … everybody’s gonna think it’s the carrot that they raised,” McGee said. “Therefore they're more likely to try it and taste it and realize that carrots are good.”
For pre-K lead teacher and STEM garden manager Satilla Mathews, the project represents an idea years in the making.
“It’s been something that we wanted to do for a long time,” she said. “So that was something that Miss Melanee had mentioned to me, and I told her, ‘Well, let's see if we can find some grants.’”
Mathews began searching for grants last summer and has secured four of the five she applied to, including support from G-SPAN and multiple Georgia Farm Bureau programs. In total, the academy has received more than $2,500, along with materials for a monthly nutrition program that introduces children to fresh ingredients through simple recipes.
The funds have helped pay for raised beds, soil, seeds and educational materials that connect gardening to classroom learning.
“That’s one thing, is incorporating the literacy,” Mathews said. “So lots of books. I'm connecting it with the Ag in the Classroom program, where I've got lesson plans that incorporate books and literacy. It’s things that we teach with pre-K already. It’s just this gives us fresh ideas, new things that we can come in and incorporate.”
The garden includes a few winter crops, such as spinach, carrots and Brussels sprouts, along with composting and seed-starting stations. Plans include growing lettuce, strawberry and herb towers, a sensory garden for younger children and expanded outdoor activity areas.
“We want to grow our own pumpkins, because in the fall we purchase pumpkins, small pumpkins, for them to decorate as an activity,” Mathews said. “We would like to be able to grow our own little pumpkins for them. This group plants them, and then when the next group of pre-K-ers come in, they get the fruit of the labor of the previous class.”
There’s a section of the garden where students can watch the pumpkins from last fall decompose, giving them an opportunity to better understand the process by seeing it with their own eyes.
“The idea is to get them back in the dirt, go back to the roots, let them learn where their food comes from,” Mathews said.
Although the first harvest is still on the horizon, student excitement is already growing.
“I open up the gate and they come in,” Mathews said. “They want to see what we're doing.”
Children have helped build the raised beds, planted seeds and turn compost, giving them ownership in the process and a front-row seat to how food grows. McGee and Mathews hope the project will inspire other small child care centers to follow suit.
“We’re just excited to let the community know that this is what we’re doing,” Mathews said.
Sarah Owens is a master’s student in journalism at the University of Georgia.