'Farm-to-table' project a hit with Acmetonia Elementary students

There appears to be a consensus among sixth-grade students at Acmetonia Elementary in Harmar — Mrs. Emerick’s classroom is the most fun.

After all, there is food growing there.

McCall Emerick, a sixth-grade science and social studies teacher, is the force behind it.

She obtained grant money through Allegheny Valley School District for a farm-to-table project and bought an aquaponics fish tank, which combines raising fish with growing plants. The fish waste provides fertilizer for the plants. There’s no soil and the plants naturally filter the water.

“My goal was to try and introduce them to healthy snacks, just an alternative to ‘let me go home and grab a candy bar,’” said Emerick. “So, we’ve grown lettuce, we’ve grown tomatoes and they love it. This is fresh from the sixth-grade farm here.”

Isabella George, 11, of Springdale, said the fun part of the process is getting to eat what she helps grow.

“It’s super good. It doesn’t taste like the store plants. It’s fresh, so it tastes better,” she said.

Emerick’s classroom features two gardens and her class grew about 10 heads of lettuce as well as basil at the beginning of the year.

“I think everybody was surprised that it tasted so good. Now they go home and grab a piece of cheese and a cherry tomato and that’s a better alternative to a bowl of ice cream or something like that. Or they try a salad instead of something that’s junk food,” Emerick said. “It teaches them they can have something that’s good tasting that isn’t a pre-packaged meal. There are no additives in this.”

As the success of her farm-to-table project grew and her students embraced it, Emerick obtained a larger grant through the Allegheny Intermediate Unit in order to create an even larger garden. Now instead of growing three heads of lettuce at a time, they can grow a dozen or more.

“It’s actually called a salad bar and we have cherry tomatoes and a whole bunch of different types of lettuce,” said Emerick. “We have a tea garden growing back there because we’re going to brew sun tea and today we started growing mushrooms.”

The new round of planting began Feb. 2 and included heirloom cherry tomatoes and five kinds of lettuce: Marvel of the Season, Deer Tongue, Paris Island, Black Seeded Simpson and Rouge D’Hiver. The children are in charge of the garden and share responsibilities such as filling the plant containers, watering the plants and putting the nutrients in with the plants.

“We’re learning how much the plants grow every day and how long it will take before we can eat them,” said Dalena Arnone, 11, of Springdale.

Meanwhile, Colton Jones, 11, of Cheswick, admitted he wasn’t a huge fan of vegetables.

“I only like lettuce and broccoli, so I don’t like a lot of it,” he said, adding that he’s keeping an open mind.

Getting all of the kids involved is important because there are two groups of students who only spend two days a week in the classroom while learning from home the rest of the week.

“We’re collecting data for the salad bar so the students will be responsible for noting when they start to sprout, measuring and doing things like that,” Emerick said.

With an optimal amount of light provided by LED grow lamps designed for indoor plants, this new batch of vegetables will be fully grown in three or four weeks. Then they will plant something new.

“I think a lot of (the students) don’t have the experience of gardening and what’s kind of unique about this is that, because things grow quicker here than in a regular garden, they are here every two days so they can actually see the growth,” said Emerick.

She said it’s a very fulfilling project for her as a teacher, an endeavor that is building a classroom community, especially important with all of the challenges created by covid-19.

“I think for me it’s seeing how excited they are to be here and proud to have this in their classroom,” Emerick said. “When they come in that’s the first thing they want to do is check the plants. That means they want to be in the classroom. So, instead of saying they don’t want to be in school, especially with (the pandemic), they want to be here and see what’s going on.”

At the end of the year each student will be given a plant to take home.