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VIDEO| In touch with Earth
Earth Day
Video
Volney Rogers Middle School is celebrating the earth by planting a garden and performing a play.
YOUNGSTOWN — Pupils at Volney Rogers Junior High School are getting their hands dirty as a way to “Celebrate our Earth.”
All three grade levels at the school, sixth through eighth, have been cleaning school grounds, preparing a tadpole pond and building two greenhouses for the seeds the kids will plant. There have also been posters created and academic lessons that illustrate respect for the earth.
Pupils have been working on various projects since Earth Day, April 22. The project this week not only deals with the Earth, but goes into the Earth.
A series of tables lined the school gymnasium Tuesday; each was covered in peat pots with seeds and soil ready for planting.
Kids lined the steps entering the gymnasium ready to briefly get their hands dirty in the planting soil. Before any planting took place, however, they were required to watch a play detailing the workings of a Three Sisters Garden.
A Three Sisters Garden is an ancient method of gardening using an inter-cropping system to grow corn, beans, and squash crops simultaneously in the same growing area. The play, performed by seventh-grade honor pupils, shows how the crops work together to grow better.
Science teacher Nora McDevitt said using the play teaches kids the value of working together and a little something about the squash, corn and beans to be planted.
“One of our middle school indicators talks about symbiosis, so with this, we learn about that. It also talks about diversity because each group thinks they have the best way of doing things, but each group gets something from the other,” she said.
“We want our kids to work together, and we are making that connection between the squash, corn and beans.”
McDevitt said once the pupils plant the seeds, the plantings will be placed in a greenhouse on the school grounds until they are ready for the kids to take them home and plant them again. She said the planting should be easy for the students and good for the environment.
“The peat pots are good because they decompose; they don’t have to take them out. They can just plant the entire thing,” she said.
McDevitt hopes the students make use of what they plant and share the lessons learned with their families.
Principal Marilyn Mastronarde said the planting experience is a first-time experience for many students.
“This is the first time many of the kids have planted anything and had the opportunity to watch it grow,” she said. “I am hoping it creates a new interest in planting and respect for what others have planted.”
The pupils will have other opportunities to do some planting.
Mastronarde said the school’s perimeter has been cleaned up in preparation for planting. She said the cleaning and planting have a dual purpose — beauty and preparation for the future.
“Our intention is to plant a lot of the perennials we need for the new building and take them over when it is built. That way, we will have participated in that building,” she said.
The Volney Rogers Junior High School building will be razed and replaced with Volney Rogers Middle School on the same Schenley Avenue site on Youngstown’s West Side.
jgoodwin@vindy.com