ABRAXAS HIGH SCHOOL FOUNDATION
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Mission Statement
Our garden program, now in its third year, strives to bring students together with staff, community gardeners, and local businesses to create a thriving project that provides food for local families in need. This past year we grew and donated over a ton a food to help needy families in our community.
About This Cause
Project Description – We have created an on-campus garden that is designed, built, grown, and harvested by students. We donate 80% of the fruits and vegetables to needy families in our community as well as our student body. In the past two years we have donated over 4500 pounds of produce to our community. Our garden sits on an old, unused tennis court on our campus, and has become a beautiful addition to the community. The garden is divided into two separate areas. Half of the garden is a traditional soil based garden, where vegetables are grown in raised beds and watered through a drip system. The other half of the garden is an aquaponics garden. We have an 8000 gallon in-ground pond with 250 fish (Tilapia), which were bred by students in the Biology classroom. These fish provide the nutrients to the plants while consuming 85% less water than traditional gardening. The aquaponics garden allows us to teach sustainable gardening because we use the same water over and over to grow our produce. Our garden is used as a learning hub for many other classes on our campus. Our construction class designs and builds all the projects in the garden, including the pond and garden growing beds. Our leadership class uses the produce to cook and prepare meals for senior living homes in the area. Our art classes visit the garden for inspiration and ideas while painting or drawing projects. Our Economics class is working on a business plan for a Farmer’s Market. We have special needs classes that help plant and tend to the garden. The bulk of the work done in the garden is by the agriculture class and the aquaponics class that work in the garden every day growing, planting, and harvesting our fruits and vegetables. 3. Educational Objectives – The main objective of our garden is to teach our students how to grow food from seed to table. Teaching young adults how to grow food creates a sense of pride and ownership in their own health and well-being. The students also build a great understanding of community responsibility through the impact of using their work to provide food for the people in our community that may be struggling. These concepts tie into the concept of environmental sustainability, and how their positive impacts matter in preservation of their own futures. 4. Understanding edible gardens and eating healthy – Our students grow and eat what they produce. Many of these students didn’t eat vegetables before taking the agriculture or aquaponics class. Now they get it. Seeing the process of how food is grown from seed to food, has given the students the freedom to try things they never thought they would like. We grow tomatillos and make green salsa. We grow lettuce, tomatoes, green onions and carrots and make salad. We even have students that have grown to like squash and beets. We teach about how important it is for the body to get the nutrients only vegetables provide, and they have become very aware of the value of healthy food. We even exchange ideas about recipes, and different ways to prepare and cook food. 5. Student Population – I teach at a school of "at risk" students. They aren't necessarily at risk just because of economic reasons or outcasts from society; they are just at risk because they aren't your typical standard classroom type learners and have slipped through the cracks in our educational system. Most of them have a story that makes you want to go out of your way to give them a hand up. Our school fluctuates between 120 and 180 students, mostly junior and seniors in high school between the ages of 16 to 18 years old. I teach two classes in the garden usually consisting of 15 students per class. Over the course of a year I will have had about 100 different students come through the program. 6. Evaluating Effectiveness – I evaluate the effectiveness of my efforts by watching the smiles and holding real conversations with my students. Since we started this program two years ago student attendance has increased for anyone who has taken the class. They love the classes in the garden, and many have started growing on their own. These kids come here with heavy issues and they all love the escape of working in the garden. Students can lead tours explaining the seed to table process on both the aquaponics and traditional farming side of the project.