Mexico Elementary School in Mexico, N.Y., will install its Project Learning Garden on June 9, witnessed by representatives from Tops Friendly Markets, Dole Packaged Foods and Captain Planet Foundation.
The school won a grant from those organizations, according to a news release.
The garden program provides a context for multidisciplinary learning, ranging from nutrition and science to social studies, math and language arts.
Students benefit several ways:
- Expanding their palates, taste-testing healthy foods, and learn about food origins;
- Engaging in authentic science field investigations;
- Manipulating the environment to understand math in real-life applications;
- Recreating historical activities; and
- Writing across all these disciplines.
Williamsville, N.Y.-based Tops Markets operates 150 grocery stores in New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont, including five that are run by franchisees.
Inspired by the critically acclaimed animated series “Captain Planet and the Planeteers,” the foundation focuses on helping the next generation of business leaders and policy makers be environmentally literate citizens who leverage technology and information to manage and protect the air, land and water. It’s a grant-making foundation that has funded more than 2,600 hands-on environmental education projects with schools and nonprofit groups that serve children in all 50 U.S. states and in 25 countries, according to the release. More than 1.4 million children have directly participated in and benefited from these educational projects.
