High school students bring the HIS School Garden to Life

This past spring, a group of 9 students embarked on a journey to learn about sustainable, organic farming practices for their end-of-year Sustainable Development Goal project. Before implementing a project at HIS, students felt the need to learn more from an expert and spent three days learning and working with Chuck Kayser at Midori Farm in Kyoto. 

After the trip, students brought their learning back to HIS to provide a service to the school-- the long-talked-about-but-not-yet-implemented school garden! With remarkable speed and work ethic, this group of nine students managed to create a new garden plot in only a day’s time last spring. 

At the end of a hard work day, they invited EY students to share in their learning and plant their own seedlings in the garden plot. 

 In addition to the garden plot, students began a composting system, soliciting coffee grounds and newspaper donations from the community to get things started. To ensure that the garden survived over the hot Hokkaido summer, a watering schedule was arranged, and many HIS staff and students pitched in over the summer to keep the garden healthy. This fall, students came back to a thriving garden, ready for harvest. 

In order to make their learning about organic farming contributing to healthy lifestyles come full circle, students donated tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers to the school kitchen so that the wider community could enjoy the product of their hard work in the form of school lunches.

 

A committed group of students continues to work on the garden in the late summer and early fall months through the after school Gardening Club led by Ms. Harmon. 

 It has been a great experience seeing learning, implementation, and sharing with the community span over the course of the last few months, and we hope to keep the HIS Garden going next spring as well. If you are interested in being a part of the HIS Garden going forward, please feel free to contact Ms. Harmon (lharmon@his.ac.jp).