Mini-Grant Leads to Lifelong Skills

A MINI-GRANT LEADS TO Lifelong Skills

By Rachael Smith, Communications Manager

TEACHING AGRICULTURE to young students opens their minds to understanding how things grow. It gives them a look into farming and how one germinating seed turns into a vegetable served at the dinner table.

Students enjoy the outdoor benches funded by the mini-grant

School gardens are one way to deepen students’ learning. Florida Farm Bureau provides multiple $250 grants to teachers who creatively emphasize the importance of agriculture. Projects range from school gardens to a monarch butterfly life cycle to chickhatching.

Jocelyn Marabell is a fourth grade science teacher at Freedom Crossing Academy in St. Johns County. She is one of 44 recipients who was awarded an FFB $250 mini-grant.

She has a passion for teaching agriculture through handson

learning. Starting a school garden gave her the opportunity to teach her students about nutrition and healthy eating.

Before receiving the mini-grant, Marabell would fund much of her own classroom projects. The grant gave her the ability to purchase garden tools and soil for raised garden beds.

She and her students grew potatoes, green beans, watermelons and sunflowers. She says that to see the joy on the students’ faces when they started digging up white potatoes is unforgettable.

“Students took potatoes home and got to cook them with their parents and then shared their recipe with the garden club,” said Marabell.

As a science teacher, Marabell integrates the garden project into the regular curriculum by teaching about the different types of soil that plants grow in and how soil is formed. “I teach them about plant adaptations and tropisms and tie in math skills by measuring and collecting data on the crops we grow,” added Marabell.

Second grade teacher Tracy Johnston of Thunderbolt Elementary School in Fleming Island also received a $250 minigrant. Coined the “garden lady” due to her passion for growing food, she regularly incorporates math into her school garden lesson plan.

“We hosted a Eureka Math Night in our school garden to involve parents,” said Johnston. “They worked on measuring the perimeter of our garden beds, the height of a banana tree and

Freedom Crossing Academy students grew a healthy crop of sunflowers, tomatoes and watermelon.

lengths of our benches. It was such a fun experience for the families.”

Johnston applied her minigrant scholarship towards purchasing wooden benches and creating a botanical outdoor classroom. The classroom serves as a learning environment for other classes and clubs in the community.

Johnston says the school garden teaches students patience and that things take hard work and just don’t happen overnight. “Gardening is a great hands-on activity for all students,” she said. “It teaches lifelong skills.”

She believes that working in the garden can help change a struggling student’s attitude towards school and can build stronger relationships between teachers and students.

Johnston and her students grow as many Florida commodities as they can, arranging her lessons around what is in season by month. Her garden is home to tomatoes, peppers, green beans, pineapple,

spinach, celery, mint, radishes and an array of spices.

Students were able to taste their own school-grown oregano in the spaghetti served up by the cafeteria. “It was the best tasting spaghetti that we’ve ever had,” remarked Johnston.

In May, her students treated their moms to a special Mother’s Day oregano plant.

Johnston said that the Florida Farm Bureau mini-grant was easy to apply for and it is exciting to receive a check to help absorb the financial cost of a project that has a lifelong impact.

BELOW LEFT TO RIGHT: Thunderbolt Elementary School students couldn’t wait to eat freshly-harvested vegetables; Students practice measuring skills.

“We are creating memories and learning experiences that our students will never forget,” said Marabell. “The lessons we teach will last a lifetime.”

HOW TO APPLY

In 2019, the Florida Farm Bureau Women’s Leadership Committee distributed more than $10,000 dollars to certified Florida educators at the pre-K to 12th grade levels.

The 2019 mini-grant applications will open in August. The deadline to apply will be Oct. 1. For more information on the grants, visit https://floridafarmbureau. formstack.com/forms/grant.