West Edmonton high school students learning planting in 'Go Green' program

EDMONTON -

Students at a local high school will be getting a chance to work on their green thumbs this year.

St. Oscar Romero High School just received its second greenhouse on Tuesday, which was plunked down beside the first one in their new garden space at the back of the school.

The grounds will soon include a third greenhouse, several planter boxes, and a rock garden that will work as a sundial.

But the area is for a lot more than just beautification.

“One of the areas in science we often find that we have a hard time connecting students with is ecological learning and understanding sustainability in our environment,” explained Sophia Lobo, the head of the science department.

“We thought maybe we should start a program where our students actually get to be involved in growing their own vegetation, planting, and with that idea, it exploded into how can we get our whole school involved in this process.”

And that process became the Go Green Romero initiative, an opportunity to teach students everything from construction, planting, hydroponics, and composting. Teachers are hoping the project will accommodate real world learning for multiple subjects that would normally be confined to the classroom.

“And so we thought, OK, construction can start working on garden boxes, our WIN students can get some work experience through planting and maintaining the gardens and taking care of it, maybe harvesting it. We can look at our math students to price out some of our vegetation if we have a lot of growth, maybe we want to have an opportunity to sell it at the farmers market across the street," said Lobo.

And the opportunity to be outside working in the new garden hasn’t been lost on the students, as organizers say excited kids were already out last week prepping the grounds for the new greenhouse’s arrival.