After identifying the community’s top health priorities through a Community Health Needs Assessment, Goshen Health secured a grant to tackle obesity and food insecurity issues in the Michiana area. This led Goshen Health to implement a tower garden program throughout local schools, piloting the project with Goshen Community Schools.
Since the project’s soft launch in spring of 2023, Goshen Health has donated tower gardens to 23 schools, some with multiple units. With 11 tower gardens in Goshen Community Schools, 15 tower gardens in Elkhart Community Schools, and one tower garden in Concord Community Schools, Goshen Health Community Engagement Manager Stacy Bowers has been pleased to hear how the schools have put them to good use.
“Teachers are using these tower gardens to connect to lessons across the board,” Bowers said. “They apply it to social studies, science, math, art, and reading. There are so many ways that we can connect the gardens to education. One of the most rewarding things is hearing how creative the teachers are in using these gardens and integrating them into the classrooms. They are really using them to help make learning come alive.”
Monger Elementary School Secretary Nikole Dinehart maintains her school’s tower garden, which resides in the hallway area outside the office, and welcomes various classrooms to visit and observe the tower garden. She enjoys teaching students about the practical uses of different plants and herbs like rosemary, which is used in items such as hair products. Being able to showcase the versatility of plants opens up students’ minds, making them curious to learn more about the possible uses of plants.
Goshen Intermediate School Fifth Grade Teacher Andrew Kauffman has his students help maintain his school’s tower garden. The students fertilize and harvest the plants, create sketches of the changes they observe, and take apart the garden tower to scrub it after they are done.
The tower garden is a practical tool for Kauffman when teaching his students about the scientific side of growing a garden. Students learn about the minerals in the fertilizer and how they connect to the periodic table. This helps them understand which fertilizers work best for each plant, how plants taste depending on size and stage of growth, and whether individual plants need air, water, or soil.
“Kids get to experiment with what are good plants to grow within a tower garden,” Kauffman said. “We've tried multiple different types of flowers, and we've never been able to be successful with them yet. One of those things that we have to talk about is different variables. Sometimes the seeds work and sometimes they don't. That helps them understand it's not an end-all, be-all Tower Garden that's going to work for everything; it’s an experiment. It helps our kids to understand that it's not something that's going to work out 100% of the time. They realize, ‘This grew and this didn’t, so what am I going to do next?’ That’s a life skill: knowing that you're going to have to try new things.”
Through teacher testimonies, Bowers has learned that the tower gardens are not only teaching students about nutrition and gardening, but also about various life skills and applications. Students at Goshen High School are using their tower garden in their life skills class. They are able to learn responsibility by doing their part in caring for their tower gardens by growing and harvesting plants to use in their culinary classes.
Kauffman enjoys watching his students of mixed genders, personalities, and interests working together to sustain their tower garden and handle various jobs. This team mentality has helped students better engage with both school and their peers. Bowers has heard stories from multiple teachers about how students who were previously disengaged in the classroom are now plugging in. Their attendance has gone up, they engage in their lessons, they interact more with their peers, and they even stop by outside of class time.
“One of the Goshen elementary schools had a salad party to celebrate the harvest, and the other classrooms were a little jealous. The next round that they grew was for the other classrooms so that they could also have a salad party,” Bowers said. “It builds community. Those social aspects aren't always easy to measure, but we can see that they felt connected. They felt like they were contributing and doing something positive for other students in the building.”
Dinehart has seen the tower gardens impact social engagement at her school as well, especially for English learners. When the English-learning students first come to school, they tend to be shy, but she has discovered that the tower gardens help them segway into different conversations.
“The tower garden is a great conversation starter. We named our tower garden Flora. I have kids that actually leave notes for Flora because we had a talk in the beginning that you don't touch plants because your oils are not good for your plants. They talk to her and leave notes to say, ‘Good morning’ and ‘How are you?’ to start the day.”
On top of leaving notes for Flora, the school even puts Flora on the morning news with kids reporting in English and Spanish about how the plants are doing. On the whole, the tower gardens invite students to be more collaborative and adventurous. While many students may not like trying new things, they see other kids trying new things and decide they want to participate. Dinehart has even witnessed kids asking their parents to start growing gardens at home because of how much they love interacting with Flora.
While Goshen Health just recently expanded the tower garden program in January, Bowers is encouraged by how the project has evolved so far and is excited for Goshen Health to offer tower gardens to more schools down the road.
For more information about Goshen Health, visit goshenhealth.com.