Planting seeds by growing crops
Projects get youths thinking of bigger issues in the world
Members of the World Changers Club at Price Elementary School set aside their cookies and juice pouches, stood and began to recite the club’s creed.
“I am important, my voice matters,” they said in unison. “I will make a positive difference today.”
Outside the classroom, signs listing the United Nations’ 17 sustainable development goals hung in the hallway. Counselor Ida Villavicencio asked the kids to name the first two of those, part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the U.N,’s member states in 2015.
After the students answered “no poverty and no hunger,” she
set them to work brainstorming ways to eliminate hunger in their South San Antonio Independent School District community, where 86.5 percent of students are considered economically disadvantaged.
Groups of third- and fourthgraders offered suggestions. Many recommended that schools could grow food to share with students and residents.
Small-scale versions of such an effort already were sitting in the corner of Miguel Quintanilla’s classroom, where the World Changers Club meets weekly after school. Sprouts grew in containers made from plastic bottles on the window sill, and cilantro, basil, lettuce and spinach grew in a container above a fish tank.
Drawings and diagrams on the walls demonstrated how the aquaponic system works to help the vegetables grow, with fish waste fertilizing the plants and the plants helping keep the water in the fish tank clean.
A week later, the club met outside to work with members of South San Antonio High School’s Future Farmers of America chapter to plant strawberries in a new, larger aquaponic unit, taller than many of the elementary students.
Quintanilla, who started planting projects with his special education students last fall, demonstrated how the World Changers and their high school helpers should remove the seedlings from plastic cups and plant them in the water-soaked pebbles on the top level of the unit.
“Save the cups, we’re going to use them for something else,” he told them.
Later, they checked on the students’ gardens, where they’re growing peppers and other vegetables in raised beds made from rainbow-painted pallets.
Sustainability
The club, launched by Villavicencio, has kick-started a schoolwide focus on sustainability. Teachers will take the aquaponic units to different classrooms. Students have assembled compost bins, and on a recent weekend set up the new larger aquaponic unit outside, complete with tilapia fish swimming in the barrel underneath.
A sign outside announces to drivers: “We practice sustainability goals.”
Moses West, who drew national notice for creating machines that produce water from humidity in the air, has visited the school twice to talk about his efforts to bring potable water to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.
After his presentations, students swarmed West with questions about the cleanliness of the water and how long the atmospheric generators take to produce it.
He told them he plans to install a water generator at Price, and administrators are hopeful other partnerships will follow with other companies focused on sustainability.
Some of the students were steered to the club by Villavicencio, who’s modeling her efforts on what she saw at Buell Central High School, a disciplinary alternative school in Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD.
For years, Buell Central’s principal, Mario Bracamontes, has integrated sustainability projects into the school’s curriculum, teaching the uses of solar panels or how to clone plants or convert vegetable and peanut oil donated by local restaurants into biodiesel for vehicles, he said.
The project-based learning and students’ excitement about the U.N. goals get them engaged in their schoolwork and thinking about the future, Bracamontes said. Some have asked to stay at the Disciplinary Alternative Education Program to continue their projects, instead of returning to their home campuses, he said.
“My school is for at-risk kids. This is not only getting kids to succeed on their standardized tests, it’s saving their lives,” Bracamontes said.
Growing leaders
Villavicencio, the school’s counselor, said the club has been empowering for the students, and that the focus on problem-solving carries into the classroom, too.
“With the goals, like no poverty and everything, I’ve experienced that, we’ve been through that,” said Ashley Vazquez, 11. “We want to try to fix it.”
“We’re learning about good health and well-being,” said Diego Cruz, 10.
Quintanilla brings fruit and vegetables in to show the students what they could plant and grow. That has introduced some of them to new foods.
He’s used it for other lessons, by making math word problems out of grocery store produce ads and having students measure when they assembled their compost bins and garden beds.
“They’ve rapidly become leaders,” said club co-sponsor Courtney Klueber, who works at Price through Communities in Schools.
Some of the students who’ve joined previously had issues with bullying or behavior, and the hands-on, problem-solving approaches they’re learning has helped change their perspective, she said.
“They’re more self-motivated,” Klueber said. “We’re handing them problems, and they think through it for themselves, they’re trying to make changes.”
Samantha Vasquez, 9, said she doesn’t always have opportunities to share her ideas, and that she used to feel discouraged.
“I can share them here,” she said. “I know there’s endless possibilities to do stuff to help people.”
Price’s students also advocate for recycling, which is available at all the district’s campuses.
Ryan Lopez, Price student council president and World Changers club member, approached the South San board of trustees last month when he learned that the recycling wasn’t being picked up anymore after the company started charging a collection fee that the district wouldn’t pay.
“I really believe that if we continue to recycle at Price, our students will take that good habit home,” Ryan said. “Please help us help our community and the world.”
The district is working with the company and plans to pay for recycling collection at all campuses, district spokeswoman Jenny Collier said.
Teachers and Principal Florinda Castillo hope Price’s efforts can be replicated at other schools in the district. Some are already underway at the high school.
Collier said administrators are “truly amazed” and “in awe” of Price’s sustainability initiatives, and added: “We look forward to seeing how this program will grow and how it can expand.”