Agricultural education growing at Summit Elementary
The seeds have been planted for Summit Township Elementary School’s agricultural education — and now its administrators are growing its potential even further.
The school started a Community Agricultural Partnership at Summit last school year, thanks to a $70,000 Moonshot Grant from Remake Learning, allowing educators to plant seeds to teach gardening.
Construction will soon be complete on a greenhouse and an outdoor classroom at Summit Elementary, which will allow teachers to expand on agricultural education over the course of a student’s tenure at the school.
“We're working through, the teachers at Summit are developing an agricultural overlay curriculum so teachers at all schools can use it,” said David Andrews, instructional coach for student engagement at the Butler Area School District. “It's going to ramp up as a curriculum that will be teaching not just agriculture, but integrating into math and science as well.”
The outdoor classroom will be an enclosed pavilion structure about 40 by 50 feet in size with site furnishings, Wi-Fi and a monitor that will let classes video call other schools so other students can take part in lessons as well.
Chad Broman, principal at Summit Township Elementary, said teachers have already begun implementing agriculture into the school’s curriculum, even outside of classes focused on the subject.
“We're not teaching agriculture-specific classes, we’re trying to do agricultural infusion,” Broman said. “Watching things grow, harvesting, planting so they will get lessons from that. It's more supporting what we’re already teaching.”
Broman also said the school’s curriculum will be constantly evolving based on how the plants have grown by students turn out, and how they interact with the subject matter. He said it could take probably five to 10 years to fully solidify a consistent agricultural curriculum.
Broman and Andrews said Summit elementary will also interact with other elementary schools in the district, which each have educational focuses that play to their strengths. For example, a market is being developed at Broad Street Elementary School.
“Broad Street is the sister school, and it’s in the process of developing a market. We're going to order materials for it so it will be ready to go in the next month or so,” Andrews said. “Any excess goods grown at Summit will go to the Broad Street market.”
Over the summer, Summit Township Elementary hosted “Workday Wednesdays,” in which students and community members could tend to the gardens already planted at the school.
Broman said these sessions were popular with local students.
“We saw families come out every week,” Broman said. “There is an excitement level that is growing because the community has agricultural pieces in it.”
Andrews expects the classroom and greenhouse to be completed and ready for students by the end of November at the latest. Broman said the school is planning a grand opening ceremony once they are completed.
Andrews said the growth of agricultural opportunities at Summit and in the school district already has people excited.
“Our staff and students have really bought in to everything at Summit,” Andrews said.
