Kirksville grows a garden
Shannon Walter
Issue date: 8/22/09 Section: TruLife
Gardening for a grade last semester created an environmental project that is still growing in the Kirksville community.
The Grassroots Environmentalism course is a student-taught service learning class that allows students to reach out to the community through projects that will have a lasting impact on the community. Senior William Erker participated in the course along with four other environmentally conscious students.
"The class carries an attitude that we as people are smart and intelligent," Erker said. "We should continue to learn [about the environment] but unless we're putting it into action, there's no point."
Erker said he enrolled in the course to learn more about environmentalism and to do something cool within the community. He said he and the other students in the class originally wanted to start a garden on Truman's campus but the idea evolved into creating a garden at Ray Miller Elementary School in Kirksville. The group worked last semester and this summer with elementary students to teach them the importance of agriculture and gardening at home.
"The kids have been taking home [the food] and eating it, or we're just eating it right there," he said. "The freshest food in the world is a pea or a bean pod picked right off the plant and eaten right away."
Professor of biology Michael Kelrick oversees the course, which is entering its fifth semester after the success of many sustainable projects throughout the Kirksville area. These include Beta Beta Beta's Science Saturday, a recycling program for Greentop and a raised garden for wheelchair users at Manor Care in Kirksville.
Kelrick said he thinks this project educates community members about the food they consume and the importance of gardening at home.
"There is all kinds of information out there to indicate, for example, that if you were to average the distance that the average item on a dinner plate has traveled, it is probably something like 1,500 miles," Kelrick said. "Despite the fact that Kirksville is [in an agricultural region] people are buying things from across the country. Our food is not only ridiculously subsidized and underpriced but it comes at a huge environmental cost, which everybody has to bear, and most people don't even acknowledge it."
The Grassroots Environmentalism course is a student-taught service learning class that allows students to reach out to the community through projects that will have a lasting impact on the community. Senior William Erker participated in the course along with four other environmentally conscious students.
"The class carries an attitude that we as people are smart and intelligent," Erker said. "We should continue to learn [about the environment] but unless we're putting it into action, there's no point."
Erker said he enrolled in the course to learn more about environmentalism and to do something cool within the community. He said he and the other students in the class originally wanted to start a garden on Truman's campus but the idea evolved into creating a garden at Ray Miller Elementary School in Kirksville. The group worked last semester and this summer with elementary students to teach them the importance of agriculture and gardening at home.
"The kids have been taking home [the food] and eating it, or we're just eating it right there," he said. "The freshest food in the world is a pea or a bean pod picked right off the plant and eaten right away."
Professor of biology Michael Kelrick oversees the course, which is entering its fifth semester after the success of many sustainable projects throughout the Kirksville area. These include Beta Beta Beta's Science Saturday, a recycling program for Greentop and a raised garden for wheelchair users at Manor Care in Kirksville.
Kelrick said he thinks this project educates community members about the food they consume and the importance of gardening at home.
"There is all kinds of information out there to indicate, for example, that if you were to average the distance that the average item on a dinner plate has traveled, it is probably something like 1,500 miles," Kelrick said. "Despite the fact that Kirksville is [in an agricultural region] people are buying things from across the country. Our food is not only ridiculously subsidized and underpriced but it comes at a huge environmental cost, which everybody has to bear, and most people don't even acknowledge it."
Be the first to comment on this story