Gardening Movement at Local High School
Read the story of how local high school students come together to find solution responding to issues raising post Covid-19 in food insecurity
During the 2021-2022 school year, the then high school juniors were tasked with the NJECC Design and Thinking Challenge, in which they had to use the design process to come up with a prototype that would help with an issue related to COVID-19. After Ms. Murphy, the Science and Research teacher at IHHS leading this project conducted an ideas fair, where other UPSMR students, teachers, and school administrators gave additional insight, the class decided to go ahead with Christine Peng’s Give and Grow project.
Peng’s Give and Grow initially sought to motivate high school students to plant tomatoes, potatoes, and lettuce through a school-wide competition, and have that produce be donated to food banks. The original goal was to help food banks provide fresh, healthy food to those in need as more people began to face food insecurity after shortages, job loss, and lack of student access to food caused by COVID-19. After improvements made by the class, Give and Grow became a collaboration between Horticulture and UPSMR students to revive and grow produce in the IHHS school garden, which would be donated to food banks during the summer. After months of hard work, the idea won 1st Place in NJECC’s competition. A big congratulations to the UPSMR students! The school garden is now being maintained by IHHS’s INTERACT director Mrs. Diblasio-Funk, and rising senior Christine Peng as they harvest produce and prepare the garden for fall.
UPSMR Students at the NJECC Conference!
Here is the link to NJECC's website where you can find a shout out to Give and Grow:
http://njecc.org/2022-student-challenge-award-winners/
Final submission to the design challenge: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FJMseAatYenbP4etxR0RhnSsa1Yqte0S/view
Give and Grow website: https://sites.google.com/student.rih.org/giveandgrow/home?authuser=0
