To those who haven’t walked into the nearly-enclosed space outside the art wing, it may just have gotten a lot more interesting—a greenhouse, dubbed the “High Tunnel,” has been built there. I emailed Mrs. Kiechle, a special education teacher and one of the primary collaborators on the project, to find out more about it.
The High Tunnel is part of a joint project between the Science Department and the Special Education Department, which both “wanted the space to enhance teaching and provide hands-on programming” according to Kiechle, who plans to use the greenhouse in her Secondary Transition Program Science class. Mr. Tuori will also use the space to teach Sustainable Agriculture in the spring. “When both our classes are using the space, we will plan to find opportunities to integrate them and support each other’s farming projects,” Kiechle said. Kiechle also mentioned that Cooperative Extension Food Gardening Outreach Educator Josh Dolan and Damon Brangman, a Gardening Specialist, “will be guest educators in my classroom, teaching lessons from the NYS Agriculture Curriculum and providing additional support with our High Tunnel projects.”
While the High Tunnel is built to enhance education, the plants grown in it will be put to good use. Plants that are planned to be grown in High Tunnel include kale, romaine lettuce, spinach, arugula, tulips, and daffodils. The plants are supposed to help fund the space: “The greens will be sold to the cafeteria [at a low price], so the cafe can offer quality greens and we can sustain our program…. We will also be selling bulbs [soon] and cut tulips and daffodils in the spring.”
Kiechle said that the project was funded with roughly $10,000, about half from an IPEI Connecting Classrooms grant and the rest from a Toolbox for Education grant from Lowe’s. Mrs. Gray, Mr. Breigle, Tuori, and Kiechle from IHS, and Chris Wein, a professor of Horticulture at Cornell, collaborated on the first grant. Margie Shaw and Mr. Sevilla also joined the team after the first grant was received.
But there was more to the High Tunnel’s creation than grant-writing. “I can honestly tell you, moving all that dirt was extremely hard work. I worked with my students every day to get the structure ready before the end of the school year,” Kiechle said when I asked how the High Tunnel was built. Tuori’s AP Chemistry classes, the STP Tech class, and the STP Science class erected the basic frame of the High Tunnel. Additionally, Kiechle said “The framed area was then surrounded with landscape fabric and crushed stone. We also had to fill the structure with tons of topsoil and compost.”
The overriding goal of the High Tunnel seems to be to allow students more, better options for hands-on learning. Kiechle said that it would provide a space for a long-term science elective and “a project-based curriculum for our Secondary Transition Program and technology classes.” Additionally, it will “create the infrastructure necessary to support work-based learning necessary for the new CDOS (Career Development and Occupational Studies) graduation credential.”
So when you eat vegetables from the cafeteria later this year, consider that you may have seen the farmer in the halls just last period.