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NORTHROP -- St. James Lutheran School in Northrop recently received a $2,500 grant from AgStar, which the school decided to use toward a new weather station, raised garden bed and science curriculum for students to explore on school property.
AgStar is promoting farming and schools with ties to agriculture by giving out grants for educational purposes.
St. James Lutheran plans to build the weather station on school grounds to help integrate science and meteorology into the curriculum. The school also plans to teach students about the agricultural community they live in by planting a raised garden that the kids can tend themselves.
St. James Lutheran School Principal Sarah Garcia believes a garden will help the community in several ways. She mentioned that she would like to see the project become a larger community garden over time.
To start out this year, the school is planning to create a 4- to 8-foot-long garden with organic vegetables to use immediately in school lunches, such as cherry tomatoes, lettuce and baby carrots. The school also hopes to harvest vegetables from the garden to potentially donate to Heaven's Table food shelf in Fairmont.
"We already do things that promote the food shelf by collecting groceries, but this way, we could move that one step further in service by taking fresh vegetables to the food shelf," Garcia said.
With the school's garden project, Garcia wishes to teach students about organic gardening and tending plants without pesticides. She hopes to include students from Martin Luther High School in Northrop to work with the younger students and give them a taste of what the high school science classes are all about.
As for the weather station project, the school plans to use it to help students make predictions about when to plant, when to cover their plants and how their plans will grow throughout the season. Garcia said the weather station will teach students how air and atmosphere tie into farming.
"A lot of the agricultural technology in our combines and tractors are tied into satellites," Garcia said. "[This project's purpose is to give students] that whole idea that this is all tied together. Some people don't think of farming and agriculture as being so intricate with technology. It's not the same gamble our grandparents took when going out to keep an idea of what the seasons have been like from year to year."