Daily Record: IB students plan to donate produce harvested from garden
International baccalaureate students, studying at Tri-County International Academy, plant a garden during time out from a rigorous academic schedule. Because community service is part of their overall program, they hope to donate what they grow to a local charity.
[Republished with permission from Linda Hall and The Daily Record]
International baccalaureate students, studying at Tri-County International Academy, plant a garden during time out from a rigorous academic schedule. Because community service is part of their overall program, they hope to donate what they grow to a local charity.
It can’t hurt to take time out from a demanding academic schedule for a hands-on activity in an outdoor setting.
In fact, international baccalaureate students studying at Wooster High School anticipate their garden in the school’s backyard will help. Their goal is to offer community service — a component of their degree program — through donating the produce they harvest.
Called CAS — creativity, action, service — it involves 150 hours of community service over Tri-County International Academy’s two-year international baccalaureate degree program for high school juniors and seniors in the tri-county area.
This spring, they are growing vegetables and flowers — in raised beds masterminded by the junior members of the program — which hopefully are thriving as IB students take exams this week.
Students anticipate making the garden, which junior IB student Shanaé Davis said is being cultivated “to raise produce to give back to the community,” an annual project.
They started from “the ground up,” Davis said, noting the garden features just about “everything from A-Z,” including onions, broccoli, eggplant, zucchini, in addition to flowers, such as hollyhocks, for pollination purposes.
The Wooster High School science department, international baccalaureate program and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center are all involved in the project, IB science teacher Melanie Vinion said.
Supporting students one recent morning were Vinion; the academy’s director, Chad Lemon; and Claire Paisley-Jones, a National Science Foundation fellow and Ohio State University graduate student.
The grant program with which she works pairs graduate students with local high school teachers, who want “to make science more fun,” Paisley-Jones said.
“Our particular project is the watershed; my work is on food systems and how local food systems affect the watershed,” she said.
“I think (the garden) will be a fun project,” Lemon said.
The IB program overall is “totally unique as an educational process,” Davis said, having discovered, “The more I put into it, the more I get out of it.”
She acknowledged it’s a challenge, one to which she must apply herself and work hard.
This year, full-time students — five of them from Wooster High School — total 19, with a number of part-time students as well. The 2008-09 school year is the first in which a part-time option has been available, according to Lemon.
Students join the academy from Wayne, Holmes and Ashland counties and receive an IB diploma for completing the full-time program, as well as a diploma from their home schools, where they may continue to take elective courses and participate in extracurricular activities.
Applications from sophomores will be accepted as long as space in the program remains, according to the IB link on the Tri-County Educational Service Center Web site.
For information on the program, contact Lemon at 330-345-4000, Ext. 8215.
Reporter Linda Hall can be reached at 330-264-1125, Ext. 2230, or e-mail lhall@the-daily-record.com.
