Ingalls students christen new outdoor classroom

LYNN – Samantha Trunfio’s second-graders crowded around a raised garden bed out behind the Ingalls School Tuesday to plant the inaugural tomato plant in the school’s new outdoor classroom.”I’m so thrilled that conversation that started a year ago with Kim (Powers, former Ingalls School Principal) resulted in this beautiful outdoor classroom,” said City Sprouts Executive Director Jane Hirschi.City Sprouts is a non-profit school garden program, whose mission is to try and get teachers to take their lessons outside, Hirschi explained. She praised North Shore Food Project Director Jay Harrison for sharing his garden space with the group.The garden, which is made up of a half dozen raised garden beds, two raised high enough to accommodate students in wheelchairs, sits adjacent to the Food Project’s one-acre garden that is nearly a decade old.”Having you all here is long overdue,” said Harrison. “It’s been nine years we’ve been here.”The Food Project has a one-acre garden behind the Ingalls School that last year produced 20,000 pounds of food. Alex Freedman, a FoodCorps service member who is serving with City Sprouts as the garden coordinator, said the larger garden was open to the students for lessons but it was “not as full of resources as it could be.”Freedman said he decided to design a space large enough for a class of students to move about freely but small enough for a teacher to have control over the area.”A place for them to plant and dig and get their hands dirty while still engaging in learning,” he said.Eight-year-old Juliana Plaza said that is precisely what she liked about gardening. “People are having fun and they don’t even know they are learning,” she said. “They just think they’re having fun.”Ingalls School Principal Irene Cowdell said she also has learned a lot from Freedman when it comes to gardening.”I learned it’s okay to bring a little dirt into the building,” she said.She also learned that worm farms don’t smell, and grow lights help the seedlings planted by kindergartners grow in sturdy so the older students can plant them, she added.Sebastian Dalence sunk his hands deep into the rich soil in one of the raised garden beds, digging a hole in which his classmate Brianny Guillen deposited a sun gold tomato plant.Freedman said he invited Trunfio’s students to participate in the official opening of the garden because it was the first class to embrace him when he came to the school in September.The garden also includes a rock garden where Freedman actually chose the rocks to tie into fifth grade geology lessons.”It really is a garden of collaboration,” he said.Superintendent Catherine Latham, Powers, School Committee members John Ford and Rick Starbard, Mayoral Chief of Staff Jamie Cerulli and a half dozen other school staffers also attended the opening.”The city is really interested in eating healthy,” said Latham. “We’re all on board to make our lives better and our food healthier, and this feeds into that example.”While Plaza and her classmates Katherine Deleon and Tatiana Ortega said they like to garden because it’s like playing in the dirt, Manuela Vargas, also 8, was not as sure.”I like the garden,” she said. “But I don’t really like getting dirty.”Chris Stevens can be reached at [email protected].