From bug hotels to schoolyard gardens, Harrisonburg and Rockingham County Public Schools are getting help to provide hands-on agricultural experiences to students.

Grants provided by Virginia Agriculture in the Classroom will help pay for these opportunities.

This year, Virginia AITC provided a total of $36,000 to schools across the commonwealth to support experiences in and around the world of agriculture. It gave grants to HCPS and Lacey Spring Elementary School and Montevideo Middle School in RCPS.

 

For HCPS, the $500 grant the division received will go toward their newest integrative STEM unit — bug homes. Amy Sabarre, the HCPS director of STEM education and PK-5 science coordinator, said these hotels focus on providing pollinators and bugs with homes throughout the winter. The projects, set up for first grades, coincide with the first-grade stem unit focused on changing seasons and animal structures.

“Students are doing research both outside and in their classrooms to determine what those specific bugs that need a home for the winter would need to live in,” Sabarre said. “Each cell of the bug hotel will have a different material that fills it so that the insects that like that material would go into that specific room of the hotel, so to speak.”

The bug hotels, made up of cut wood, cinder blocks and other materials, will also help fourth graders learn more about pollination.

“We’re hoping that first and fourth grade will kind of talk to each other and learn about each other’s projects because they’re mutually beneficial,” Sabarre said.

Sabarre said the grant helped pay for the materials for the six elementary schools with the bug homes. Hands-on projects like the bug hotels, Sabarre said, help connect what the science students are learning to their day-to-day lives.

“It gives them a real purpose for their learning and something that will last for years to come,” Sabarre said. “Students in first grade will be able to see this insect hotel for the time that they’re in elementary school and potentially even clean it out and get it ready for the next grade level.”

Lacey Spring Elementary on North Valley Pike and Montevideo Middle in Penn Laird, are using the grants they received to help fund additions and supplies for their school gardens.

Carlene Lantz, a librarian at Lacey Spring, said the $500 grant the school received would help buy supplies for the school garden, including hoses, tomato cages and kid-friendly knives for the school’s garden cooking cart. The Virginia AITC is one of many grants the school has gotten for the garden, with the help of principal Tammy May.

“It’s just great to have resources to make it look better and grow better,” Lantz said. “It shows [students] where food comes from and gives them a hand in helping to prepare it and kind of take ownership in it.”

Kristen Horn, a Montevideo Middle agriculture teacher, said the school was selected to receive a $400 grant, which will go toward creating raised beds to add to the pollinator gardens the middle school created last year.

“We wanted to keep adding to this community garden thing we have going on here at Montevideo,” Horn said.

Horn said the Virginia AITC is a grant they apply for every year and have also received other grants to fund projects for students.

The students will build the raised beds, and Horn is working with a few science teachers to add dirt and plants to the beds. Horn said the hands-on project helps students connect to their learning and gives them the confidence to create in ways they haven’t before.

“They’re always hesitant and scared to do this stuff — to use power drills and to cut things,” Horn said. “So I teach them, seeing them succeed and seeing them get used to it. And then they know they could do it, seeing them develop like that — that’s really rewarding.”