University of Nebraska–Lincoln faculty, staff and students are helping high school students grow connections in a Lincoln neighborhood.
Students supported by the Lincoln Public Schools/College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources Early College and Career STEM focus program maintain a community garden at Lincoln Northeast High School. Bailey Feit, program coordinator, said the garden is a hands-on way for students to learn about food systems and learn from faculty and students about practical applications of the skills.
The educational opportunity has also become a community-building exercise for the school and the neighborhood.
“They take pride in this project because they know that it’s important, but they also see the impact on their community, their fellow peers, and they get some recognition for being the ones taking care of it,” Feit said.
The garden consists of six raised beds. The students grow tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, and even planted corn last year. They give away their produce at East Campus Discovery Days for an optional donation.
The group plants different crops every year based on what the students are interested in. One student, for example, really wanted to plant a small cornfield. Another initiated the planting of a pollinator habitat. Another wanted to improve the landscape design of the area.
“I love how it changes with the students and we make it fit with the needs of that group each year,” Feit said.
The garden started with a group of English Language Learner students who were studying food insecurity and learned that the school sits in a food desert. Since then, groups like the Northeast/CASNR Food, Energy, Water and Societal Systems Focus Program and the school’s garden club have become involved with the care of the garden. Science, special education and even English classes have also used the garden for lessons, and tech science students built a shed for equipment.
“I really attribute it to the adults in this building being willing and being excited to see students’ efforts,” Feit said. “They saw student interest and student engagement. Staff and our administration were very supportive.”
Students meet once a week during the summer to water, weed and otherwise care for the beds, or harvest from the garden. Sometimes they also use the school kitchen for a cooking lesson using their own crops.
“It’s something they can touch and see and feel on a daily basis,” Feit said. “They can see the impact or maybe they themselves can take that pepper home with them and apply what they learned about in their class.”
Abdul Rafay, a rising sophomore, who will begin the pre-pathway curriculum of the Early College and Career STEM focus program this fall, joined the group this spring and said he was interested in working with the technology the group uses, like the grow towers and FarmBot, a robot that can be used in precision agriculture.
“The FarmBot includes programming, and I’m interested in programming,” he said.
University faculty, staff and students sometimes visit to help with accessing plants or the irrigation system or otherwise talk about the garden with Northeast students, and the group has also toured greenhouses on East Campus. Husker students sometimes stop by to help with the garden. Feit said she thinks these connections are beneficial to introducing university programs and career opportunities in that industry to the high schoolers.
“The students get to see themselves in a student that is only a few years older than them,” she said. “They get to have a one-on-one conversation about that college experience and why that young person chose CASNR and what their career pathway is.”
The club encourages students to take home items, but they also reach out to residents of the community and let them know it’s available to them too. Feit said members of the community frequently stop and ask questions about the garden.
“Community members are welcome in the space and welcome to take anything home that they need,” Feit said.
Cindy Lopez, rising junior and Early College and Career STEM focus program student, joined the group around a year ago to spend time caring for nature in a way that is also helpful to others.
“A lot of nature is being destroyed, so maybe this is not a lot, but it’s something that feels good to make it better,” Lopez said.
Lopez enjoys working with the other students because they share a common interest and can help each other out in the garden. She said it’s a way for her to both give back and benefit from it too.
“We can take (the product) home sometimes, so we contribute to it and then we take from it, as well,” she said.
This year the group hopes to use some of their produce like tomatoes, peppers and onions to make their own “Rocket Salsa” to sell as a fundraiser, and they’ve also considered making pesto with their basil. Feit said they work with nearby middle schools to introduce the process to future Northeast students, and she’d also like to see increased collaboration with other community gardens in that area of town.
“We have people in need in this community, so how we can use our gardens for good?” she said.
Feit said she hoped that in addition to a better idea of future career opportunities and a sense of responsibility, the students will walk away from the project with more awareness and understanding of food systems.
“(I hope they have) appreciation for all the food we have in grocery stores and how that came to be, and how much work goes into successfully growing food,” she said.
