Students Learn How to Compost, Grow Food in New NHSD Greenhouse

Students at are learning to grow their own food, using a new 11-by-16 greenhouse built in the junior high courtyard.

The greenhouse, in its first year of use, was acquired through a $15,000 Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection grant.  It is providing a hands-on classroom for biology students and the food and nutrition classes, which will reap the bounty later this year and use in the meals they prepare.

“We’re going to harvest everything,” said Amy Patsilevas, one of the co-teachers for the Nutrition, Food and Fitness class, during a recent class where the students planted their first seeds.

Given the colder weather at the start of the planting, “we don’t know how it’s going to go," she said. 

Students in each of the three classes planted 16 different seeds of a variety of vegetables and herbs.

“I think it’s going to be competitive,” she added.

Biology students will use the greenhouse to measure plants growth according to weather and temperature patterns and compare the growth of the veggies and herbs planted with compost added to the soil to those that are compost-free.

It’s a win-win for the two departments, said Jen DiPasquale, the ninth-grade biology teacher who wrote the grant.

“My kids get to eat with her kids when they make the meal,” she said.