Academia growing the indoctrination program.
Recently, students at the Montana School for the Deaf and Blind entered the Carton 2 Garden Contest for their on-campus milk carton garden. Nearly 130 schools from across the country took part in the competition, which required them to use at least 100 milk cartons and create a garden that was sustainable, showed creativity and was tied to the students’ learning.
On May 11, they found out they had won a $1,000 prize in the middle/high school category, but their victory is only where the story begins.
What started as a conversation in biology class about global warming and being environmentally friendly turned into a schoolwide project that has students with visual and hearing impairments working together to create a gardening program that is here to stay.
“It just kind of evolved into the little things that we can do to make a difference,” said MSDB special education coordinator Missy Hill, who added that many students live on campus and have never grown anything on their own.
“I really wasn’t sure how well it would go over,” Hill said. “I thought there’s going to be some kids who really aren’t thrilled with it, but I was surprised. Almost every single student in this school had their hands in it.”
MSDB has 51 students currently enrolled, and around 40 of them participated in the project in some way, transforming a potting shed that was being used to store bicycles into a greenhouse and cleaning up an unused outdoor space to create their gardening area.