The school gardens at Partnership Middle School are showing signs of spring. Last week, students from the Agriculture and Natural Resources program at Starkville High teamed up with the middle school GrOW classroom to begin preparations for the gardening season. Agriculture and Natural Resources is a two-year Career and Technical Education (CTE) pathway available through the Millsaps Career and Technology Center at SHS.
Millsaps students arrived early with instructor Margaret Swedenburg to begin clearing beds of debris and old plantings from the winter season. Partnership GrOW students joined the class to learn about planting techniques and to get a hands-on experience of bringing the garden to life for the spring.
Mallory Carlisle, GrOW instructor, gave middle school students a demonstration of the best ways to plant seeds as well as small seedlings, including how to remove plants from flats, how deep to dig the holes for seeds and seedlings, and how far to space plants apart. Millsaps students were on hand to work with the class and coach them as they planted the vegetables and flowers that will soon fill the beds with produce and blooms.
Students and staff from the Mississippi State University College of Forest Resources also worked with students during the planting session to give additional instruction. Dr. Jasmine Hendrix, Director of Recruitment and Retention, and Aleria Storey, CFR Graduate Student, worked to secure supplies for the joint planting event.
The Partnership Middle School campus includes a raised-bed school garden as part of its outdoor common space, and the garden is maintained year-round by staff and students who are enrolled in the GrOW exploratory class. This unique course began through a grant awarded by Blue Cross Blue Shield in 2020 to provide hands-on learning experiences in gardening and overall wellness utilizing the garden space as well as mobile cooking units. The program has evolved into an early introduction to the career fields of Agriculture and Natural Resources – a precursor to the Millsaps CTE program – combined with natural sciences, wildlife education and a garden-to-table understanding of where food comes from. An integral part of the program for students is getting their hands dirty in the garden.
Starkville Oktibbeha Consolidated School District provides students with opportunities for career exploration beginning in kindergarten through MakerSpaces at each school which expose children to a variety of collaborative and STEM-based activities. By creating opportunities such as the garden collaboration between Millsaps and Partnership Middle, students can gain an earlier introduction to CTE courses available in high school that more directly tie classroom to career.
