In the A.C. Reynolds Middle School herb garden, students grow math skills alongside the chives and parsley.
Using a grant from the Buncombe County Schools Foundation, Ms. Gillian Tart-Snyder's seventh graders built raised garden beds and hoop houses. They also bought gardening soil, seeds, and other supplies. The garden helps students visualize seventh grade core math standards like scale, volume, and surface area.
“It’s a good visual, and it’s like a real-world thing,” said seventh grader Lincoln Wine. “The plans were on paper, but once we started making them, it really made sense. It’s good for people who like hands-on stuff.”
“It’s important to understand volume when you’re looking at a container that’s only so deep and you need to fill it with dirt but not too much dirt,” added fellow seventh grader Sagan Finley. “It’s a pretty cool project.”
The garden also provides opportunities for cross-curricular lessons with science, English language arts, social studies, and student clubs, Ms. Tart-Synder said.
“It’s all about connections,” she said. “More than just the math skills, it was learning how to be clear and concise in their justifications, how to work together, manage their time, learning when to use exact measurements and when to estimate, how to use tables and graphs to help look for patterns, how to measure accurately, and how to organize it all. It has been really challenging, stressful at times, but incredibly worthwhile and I think they enjoyed the hands-on application.”
When the herbs are ready, the students plan to give back by incorporating them into an upcoming community night dinner.