Bewerse’s Greenhouse Growers
Atlantic High School
End of Year Impact Report
This year we opened our greenhouse. We became the Atlantic High School GreenstarGreenhouse Growers and started learning gardening skills in the fall, purchasing trowels, safety glasses, and gloves with mini-grant monies. We began learning to grow plantsfrom seeds and cuttings. As we established our greenhouse, we grew coleus, spider plants, geraniums, lettuce, and herbs. We learned to care for and assess the plants for health, watering, fertilizing, repotting, and composting. We studied, and the students were assessed on,the structure of plants and theirlife processes: photosynthesis, cellular respiration, and reproduction. The students compared and contrasted life processes of plants and humans and studied the impact of plants on humans for food, shelter, medicine, clothing, leisure, and air quality. They learned about regeneration: that plants will find a way to grow. All students successfully demonstrated understanding of these concepts through assessment, student performance, and teacher observation.
Due to modified funds, we held a small plant sale in December, with the plants we had grown to that point ($61.00). Our first mini grant plant purchase wasin January, for Valentine’s Day. We purchased 16 landscape flats of new alyssum and lobelia plants. The goal of this project was growing and care of blooming plants. Weassessed, cared for, fertilized and repotted the plants, while observing their growthprior to Valentine’s Day (see photos). We used them in our Student Based Enterprise, Greenhouse Growers, gift wrapping and selling them, and making business decisions for them and other plants that we grew. Our sale netted over $300.00. In March, we used the remainder of our mini-grant monies to purchase young herb plants and begonias from Slingerland’s, Inc.Again, we cared for them:assessed, watered, fertilized, and repotted them as they needed it. We measured the growth of one herb plant in each flat over a month’s time, with the data showing significant growth during that time (see data below). We also took photos of their growth (see photos below).As the plants matured and became ready, they became part of our Greenhouse Growers Student Based Enterprise for our spring and Mother’s Day plant sale. The students made business decisions regarding the marketing and sale of the plants they had grown, including gift wrapping the sweetheart begonias and combining the herbs to create herb pots. They helped with the sale throughout, including additional plants we had grown: herbs, geraniums, spider plant hanging pots, aloe vera, rubber plants,golden pothos, and succulent pots from seeds and cuttings. This sale netted over $500.
Herbs Initial measurement final measurement in
in centimeters 4/7/15 in centimenters 4/30/15
1) Chive 18.5 32
2) peppermint 12 30
3) marjoram 14 43
4) oregano 4.5 20
5) parsley 5 25
6) peppermint 16 30.5
7) chive 23 31
8) chamomile 12.5 14.5 at week 2, butplant
died by this date
9) sage 15 20.5
10) marjoram 19 41
11) sage 7.5 25.5
12) chervil 17 28.5
In addition, we used a flat of begonia plants for our experiment for the ASAP Science EXPO, on May 14th, at Embry-Riddle University:What effect does fertilizer have on plants? We labeled and measured the front 2 plants in each of 3 sections. We watered all 3 sections 2x/week. Section 2 was fertilized 1x/week and section 3 was fertilized 2x/week. We watered, fertilized, and measured the growth of our plants weekly, for a month, and graphed the data. We took photos for visual data (see powerpoint file attached to the impact report ). The begonias started as new plants. Though the measured section 2 plants grew larger than the section 3 plants, we found that fertilizer still made the plants grow larger. When looking at the photos, we observed that more plants in section 3 grew larger with more fertilizer. In each section there were smaller plants, we concluded that each plant grew differently according to its genetics, like humans grow differently. Overall, we concluded, that that the more fertilizer we used, the larger the plants grew.
Initial measurement Final measurement
In centimeters in centimeters
Height width height width
Section 1 2 4 6 6.6
4 3 3 4.1 (lost a
leaf)
Section 2 2.4 5.3 7.5 10.1
2 5.3 5.8 9.3
Section 3 3 4.1 4.5 6.5
2.3 2.2 6 8.6
From January on, as a class, we created a weekly journal entries regarding all of our greenhouse growing activities. Tuesdays and Thursday were greenhouse lab days. We also recently started a blog on the Atlantic HS website, to keep readers aware of our growing projects and “what’s going on in the greenhouse.” We have made initial entries, but will make them weekly, next year, to document our many growing projects and to keep our blog followers and plant customers up to date.
Though we had 18 students participating in the greenhouse growing, during our greenhouse labs, we had many others, including multi-ve students, who did projects in, and visited the greenhouse, as well as all those who came to visit the greenhouse during the sales and other times. Our students were able to educate them regarding our projects and their gardening skills, and to help with the plant sales.
The students demonstrated significant growth, not only in their attitudes toward gardening, but in their efforts and their skills. The monies from the mini-grant Bewerse’s Greenhouse Growers became the support for a yearlong greenhouse program that impacted, not only our students, but our high school community. We had many positive comments from our customers about the quality of our plants, but also that they wanted to support our program, and indeed, they did.
At this writing, we are closing the greenhouse for the summer. We plan to continue GreenStar Greenhouse Growers next year and will share the skills learned this year, with a new group of students.
We are also in the process of making an end-of-year report for the Greenstar Greenhouse Growers, evaluating the year and our growing projects, creating an EXCEL spreadsheet for greenhouse sales, and planning for the coming year.
Expenditures
Home Depot 11/24/14
Hand trowels, gardening gloves, safety glasses
189.97
Slingerlands, Inc 1/26/15
16 landscape flats of 18 plants 144.80
Slingerland’s 4/3/15
12 landscape flats of 18 plants - herbs
6 landscape flats of 18 plants - begonias 164.90
$499.67 mini grant funds $500.00
Note: In addition to the monies from the mini-grant, Home Depot donated $75 in coupons for fertilizer. 15 bags of soil were donated by private individuals to the greenhouse program.