PHOTO COURTESY OF MEDICINE HAT PUBLIC SCHOOL DIVISION
Earth Club members at Medicine Hat High School with their newly built and planted garden boxes in the courtyard of the school
reporter@medicinehatnews.com
At the recent meeting of the Medicine Hat and District Horticultural Association, the Medicine Hat High School Earth Club gave a presentation to members. Teacher and Earth Club mentor Jennifer Matt along with Grade 12 student and club member Bethany Klein provided information on Earth Club activities and projects.
The club creates infographics on a regular basis.
“We find this is a great way to connect, especially with younger people on a platform that is more reachable to them,” explained Klein. The club shares the infographics on their Instagram account and all are about earth friendly topics, such as reducing waste and personal well-being. “All the information is compiled by members of our group and then we pass that on to one of our art-oriented people. It’s a great learning experience for all of us and then we get a beautiful, finished product.”
On Earth Day the group had a celebration at Hat High that included a bake sale, scavenger hunt and a board of hope. The group has done a few team-building scavenger hunts together and decided to expand it to the entire school where students searched for green and sustainable items around the school.
“We had kids running around finding grow towers and taking weird photos,” said Klein.
In March, six students from the club, along with two teachers, attended the Youth Water, Energy and Climate summit, or Generate/Navigate conference, in Canmore. “We find these conferences get our members to grow as people and to learn some amazing life skills,” stated Klein.
Inside Education runs the conference and pays for food, accommodation and travel as long as the projects designed at the conference are implemented in the school. This year, the project germinated at the conference was a rain collection system.
“This one is a work in progress,” explained Klein. “Two of our members went right ahead and we had an entire plan within 20 minutes. They were passionate about it.”
The club will use the stores of rainwater to water the plants in the newly made courtyard garden boxes and plan to have the water distribution regulated by solar-powered pumps. This year, they have the funds to build a prototype so they have a functional piece that can be added next year.
The group has a small greenhouse in the school’s science lab and started some plants there. They wanted them to be somewhat established before transplanting them due to the short growing before school let out for the summer.
“At Hat High we have a little courtyard in the middle. It has artificial turf, so nothing was growing on it,” stated Klein. “We started them early so we could have a little bit of yield for the students before they leave and then they’ll be distributed to whomever wants them in the school.”
The students rolled the boxes, which are on castors, out last week and transplanted the seedlings. There are three garden boxes and vegetables, such as carrots and other root vegetables, will be grown. The group established six indoor aeroponic grow towers in the school for a previous project. These are used to propagate micro-greens, lettuce, kale, Swiss chard and various herbs throughout the year.
