In an attempt to re-connect urban students with their food, select city schools, including a school run by Chennai Corporation, are encouraging their children to grow vegetables and medicinal herbs in small patches of gardens created on their premises. “Observing the growth of plants teaches students patience and prepares them to face challenges,” Grace Alwyn, principal of Gateway International School (CBSE), Padur said. The bulk of the lady’s finger, brinjal, and a variety of greens and gourds that they are growing will go to the home for destitute and orphaned girls run by the Brotherhood Education Trust.
Students of Sacred Hearts Matriculation School now know how to sow seeds and nurture plants as part of their ‘Field-to-Table’ programme, where students will be cooking the vegetables they grow. Once a week, the students take to the school’s spacious backyard armed with shovels, buckets and manure.
Sri RKM Sarada Vidyalaya Model Girls Higher Secondary School in T.Nagar, and Chennai Corporation Higher Secondary School in Thiruvanmiyur run similar programmes.
On Monday, Sarada Vidyalaya School students handed out one kg of lady’s finger to the noon meal centre attached to the school, said headmistress Kannaki Prabakaran. V. M. Arya, a student of the school, said she started growing brinjal, chillies and tomatoes in her house now.
S. Kathiyayini, a class VIII student at Sacred Hearts, said: “We have learnt more about soil types, seasonal plants, and we also a got an idea of how our vegetables are grown.”
