In the early spring of 2021, Bullitt County Cooperative Extension Service was invited to collaborate in a project with Nichols Elementary to create a school garden and educational program for the garden. As a community, Nichols is used to finding their own resources and support, but they contacted the Extension Service due to previous long term relationships and programs offered by Extension. The Bullitt County Extension Service, the local Public Library branch, Nichols Elementary school staff and the Nichols Elementary Parent Teachers' Association met several times over the next few months via Zoom to write a grant for the garden project, create a garden plan, install it, and develop a curriculum that encompasses age-appropriate standards to use in the garden. As an introduction to the garden the coalition decided to host a COVID friendly Garden Field Day for the students.
During the Garden Field Day 120 students from Nichols Elementary rotated through a series of booths focused on a variety of natural resources topics in the new garden area. Some of the stations included information about nutrition and health living, planting seeds, pollination and the anatomy of a flower, tree identification, the culture heritage of indigenous peoples and literacy (in the form of a story walk). All program areas from the Bullitt County Extension Service participated in the field day, manning the booths, and providing educational activities for the students. The Parent Teacher Association volunteers assisted in keeping groups properly on schedule and maintaining social distancing standards.
This program was a wonderful introduction to the new garden area for the students. The Nichols area in our county is largely underrepresented and does not have the resources that are available in other parts of the county. The Extension Service, working with these organizations, hopes to expand the educational resources in this area of our community. The children expressed great excitement to the station teachers that they were be able to get out of the school for their only Field Day and learn about what was coming in the following school year. One child was heard saying, "I can't wait for next year to start but I guess I will have to!" Another, "Do you mean we will be growing strawberries in that bed? I cant wait until we can taste them!" With this event just introducing the program, we expect many of the children to become Jr Master Gardeners from our hands-on educational programs in the upcoming year.
