Nutrition taught in school gardens

Proper food habits, life lessons part of plant programs

Americans don’t consume enough vegetables and fruits.

Just 9 percent of Americans eat the recommended amount of vegetables each day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 12 percent eat the recommended amount of fruits.

For children, those numbers are even lower; one study found that many American toddlers go days without one serving of fruits or vegetables.

The reasons for the low numbers are attributed to a variety of factors based on an array of research. Limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables can make it difficult for children to consume daily recommendations, as well as a shift in recent generations away from home gardening.

School gardening programs are emerging as a way to teach valuable nutrition and life lessons, with some math and science lessons built in, too.

Anh Nguyen is a math teacher at Wekiva High School who is determined to teach her students a thing or two about how to grow their own food. The school has on-site aquaponic gardens that teach students how to grow food in areas where water and land are sparse.

“Kids here rarely see or do not know how food is grown, especially healthy food. We provide a sustainable farming method that can happen in small spaces and urban settings,” Nguyen said.

The aquaponic gardens are completely soil-free, fertilized with fish waste from Koi and tilapia that live on the school campus. The vegetables, herbs and spices grown are given to the culinary arts program at the school and used to create dishes.

“The aquaponics garden is used as a hands-on teaching tool for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The program teaches students how to raise fish and plants in symbiotic environment, how to grow local healthy food, how sustainable farming works and how to prioritize water conservation,” Nguyen said.

The sustainable, conservation-friendly program has won Wekiva High School several awards and grants, including a STEM grant from Duke Energy and the Orange County Sustainable Development Award presented by Orlando mayor Teresa Jacobs.

“If educators can get kids excited about their learning then those experiences will benefit our young children for the rest of their life,” Nguyen said.

Research favors Nguyen’s stance. A 2016 study from the University of Texas found that children with experience gardening at school had wider vegetable preferences and consumed more of them than peers without gardening experience.

Orange Center Elementary School in Orlando uses its campus gardens to meet Florida state standards for math, social studies, language arts and science. Crops such as cabbage, cilantro, green peppers, collard greens, lettuce and parsley are