Local ISU extension course offered to help schools create gardens

Local schools that want to build a strong team to start or continue to expand a school garden will benefit from a series of five classes offered by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach.

School Garden 101, a five-week program at the office of ISU Extension and Outreach — Jasper County, 550 N. Second Ave. W. in Newton. Classes will be held 4 to 7 p.m. Monday nights Feb. 19, 26, March 5, 12 and 19.

School Garden 101 provides teachers with horticultural skills and shows them how to connect gardening principles to school activities and courses. It will help them develop the design skills they need to create a garden plan. Upon successful completion of this course, teams will be eligible to apply for awards up to $1000 for their school’s garden program.

The program is intended for school teams of two to four people. The cost is $60 per team, which provides all supplies and a resource binder filled with educational materials for the classroom. Light supper will be served. The registration deadline is Feb. 16. School Garden 101 participants can also earn 1 license-renewal credit through Heartland AEA for an additional $35 fee.

The participants will learn basics of composting, soil testing, planting seeds and growing seedlings indoors. The Jasper County organizers are John Krzton-Presson, extension horticulturist.

Susan DeBlieck, program coordinator for the ISU Extension and Outreach Master Gardener Program, developed School Garden 101 in partnership with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension while she was with Healthy Acadia, a public health non-profit organization in Maine.

“The intent of School Garden 101 is to increase the number of school gardens in Iowa. At the end of the program the school teams will have a budget and plan to obtain funds to build their school gardens,” she said.

School Garden 101 has been held in two Iowa counties — Polk and Dubuque — since 2012. ISU Extension and Outreach recently awarded a grant to the program to train extension staff and offer it in more counties. Dubuque schools broke ground for four gardens after teams there completed the training in spring 2015.

“School Garden 101 pushed us to set goals and gave us helpful ideas on how to get the job done,” said Angela Breitbach, a physics teacher at Hempstead High School in Dubuque. “It was great to be around other people who understand the challenges of being an educator and a gardener. It has reinforced that giving students hands-on real experiences in nature is priceless.”

When you are ready to register your team for School Garden 101, either fill out the online registration form at www.bit.ly/SG101team-reg or call the Jasper County Extension Office. For more information, contact the Jasper County extension office, 641-792-6433 or email John Krzton-Presson at johnkp@iastate.edu.