The People Interested in Nature and the Environment (PINE) Club has been spending their lunch and after school hours making garden bed for teachers and students to use for classes and clubs. As the beds arrive, the members of the club help build them and as each bed is built, teachers step in to let their classes interact with the garden. Ten to twelve raised beds will be put in by the end of Feb.

The PINE Club has been struggling to get more teachers and students involved with the garden after the attempt to raise chickens became too time consuming for advisers when school is not in session. While the school district will provide drip irrigation, the club has to provide the rest of the equipment necessary for garden cultivation. Science teachers Sarah Tonks and Marizka Rivette, Physical Education teacher Karen Rudolph, and the English Department have already reserved garden beds.

Rudolph wants to teach nutrition to her physical education classes to help students learn about growing healthy food. It will also be implemented in the health curriculum  by showing students how to plant a healthy garden. The beds for the science classes will most likely be changing more often than the others to fit with their curriculum. The English teachers want to plant a Shakespeare garden, which will let students to get involved with the garden first hand helping find plants that were mentioned in some of his plays or plants that represents some of the stories.

“The PINE Club wanted to have more students involved in the garden,” English teacher and PINE Club Adviser Barbara Bilderback said. “Students and teachers can share ideas, and the garden will be a catalyst for new curriculum ideas.”

The idea behind having the raised beds in the garden is to get more students and teachers involved. Each unique raised bed draws attention to the garden and gets students interested in helping as they see their creations grow. The renovations will most likely be completed by the end of Feb., and at that point, more teachers and other student groups will be able to get involved with the new garden.