On September 27th, Walter Bracken STEAM Academy Elementary School participated in the Green Apple Day of Service. The Green Apple Day of Service is a community engagement initiative that gives individuals, companies and organizations the opportunity to transform all our schools throughout the globe into healthy, safe, cost-efficient and productive learning places. Here in Southern Nevada, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is hosting the Green Apple Day of Service at Walter Bracken STEAM Academy to help them transform their campus into a "green building" at the same time saving them money long-term in operating costs. One of the projects was in the Kindergarten area and here are some pictures of them enjoying their new garden area!
The last part of February and the Beginning couple weeks of March, Kindergarten is discussing bad bugs in the garden versus good bugs. We learned about aphids, bad bugs, and that they destroy the plant. We pulled several plants that were dying because of the aphids. We saved several ladybugs, good bugs, they eat the aphids. We also learned about garlic water and that you spray it on the plants with aphids and they do not like garlic and leave or die. We also picked some sugar snap peas that were ready to be harvested. We also saw ladybug larvae on some plants. Itty bitty ladybugs will grow from the larvae. They do not look like ladybugs at first. ; )
In the month of January weeded and harvested radishes, carrots, and turnips. We planted flower seeds to bring the bees to pollinate later in the the spring. We are in the process of deciding on what to plant next. We are looking at planting a strawberry patch. ; )