FRANKTOWN —Cherry Valley Elementary fifth-grader Seth Anderson said learning through agriculture helps the lessons become more real, especially since he lives on a ranch.
“Sometimes you’re just sitting in class all day and just keep on working and working — it’s hard to just stay focused. It’s easier to think of something on the ranch to remind us,” said Seth, 10.
Seth is one of the 29 students this year who attend Cherry Valley Elementary in southern Franktown. They are learning math, science, social studies, reading and writing, but through an egg-selling business, aeroponics tower and integrated agriculture curriculum.
The school has been building the curriculum — and the chicken coop with four hens — over the past few years, but this year has ramped things up. Students in kindergarten are learning the life cycle of a chicken and what conditions are necessary to produce more eggs.
Jan Francis, a part-time science teacher, said the new curriculum is an attempt to make learning exciting and hands-on for the students, some of whom live on a farm or ranch.
“What they don’t even know is they’re doing a lot of writing that’s science-related. It’s high-interest, it’s engaging, it’s hands -on,” Francis said.
Francis tries to give the students ownership over their learning. Fifth- and sixth-graders are the CEOs of the Cherry Valley Elementary Express, the school’s egg business, which has sold about six dozen eggs so far this year. The students have been working on a business plan, and the older students are teaching the third-graders the ins and outs of the business.
“We’ve got to be good examples and do right when we teach them everything, so then they can take it up after us,” Seth said.
Francis recently got a $500 grant through the Douglas County School District’s wellness committee to purchase an indoor aeroponics tower, on which students are growing peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant and basil. They are learning about soil conditions, pollination and the plant life cycle.
“I’m only here with them a couple days a week, so they don’t get to see (the tower) every day. When they come in with this tower and there’s been lots of changes, they’re pretty excited about it,” Francis said.
District spokesperson Paula Hans said but Cherry Valley is the only school aside from Douglas County High School that has an integrated agricultural curriculum.
Kristen Welch, a parent of two children at Cherry Valley, used to teach agriculture classes at the high school.
Recently she has been helping the students manage and grow their egg-selling business, although learning is more important than making a profit.
“I think they’re getting opportunities for decision-making, opportunities to assess the viability of a business, opportunities to create marketing plans and really an opportunity to discover how to make decisions,” Welch said.
Education is more than science. math ad social studies, said Cherry Valley Elementary Principal Justin Houck
“I think here we have such a great opportunity to connect so many different disciplines with this type of learning,” he explained. “It’s about the human interaction, your civic responsibility, how do you truly connect with your community to make a business venture like this successful?”
Clayton Woullard: 303-954-2953, cwoullard@denverpost.com or twitter.com/yhClayton
Updated Nov. 20, 2014, at 1:00 p.m. This article has been revised to reflect the following correction. Originally, due to a reporter’s error, a school was misidentified in some references. It is Cherry Valley Elementary School.
