Alva Review-Courier -

FLOYDS KNOBS, Ind. (AP) — Since its inception in 2017, Good to Grow Green's goal has been to educate students and the community about healthy eating. A marketing class at Floyd Central High School plans to take that mission a step further.

The class, taught by business teacher Elexia McGowan, is collaborating with the student-led initiative to come up with ways to promote nutritional foods such as vegetables. As the students develop marketing strategies, they are also growing produce in their own classroom using a technology called vertical aeroponic gardens.

Good to Grow Green (G2GG) is part of Miles for Merry Miracles, a student-led nonprofit that provides food and gifts for those in need. According to program director Teresa Hebert, the group has purchased 11 vertical gardens for local schools throughout Floyd County, and it has developed a curriculum for teaching kids about plant growth and healthy eating.

In McGowan's class, students developed brand strategies for G2GG, creating mottos such as "Courage, Compassion, Collaboration" and "Live, Learn, Give, Earn." They learn about subjects such as nutrition and gardening and think of ways they could teach them to elementary school students and others in the community.

The idea is to teach students how to pitch G2GG's mission to schools who could use the program's curriculum and aeroponic gardens or to companies who could invest in the program.

"Our main goal is to feed kids, but through the philanthropy of learning how to run a business and the marketing end," McGowan said.

A couple students are hoping to create an app to help kids keep track of calories and nutrition, and the class is working to create a new logo for G2GG.

The class involves plenty of hands-on learning experience. The students assemble, maintain and study the classroom's two vertical gardens. The garden towers take up little space, and they require less water than traditional gardening methods. Because they don't require sunlight, the plants can grow year-round.

Students planted seedlings in one of the towers on Nov. 2, and since then, greens such as lettuce, rainbow chard, arugula and bok choy have quickly grown. Junior Joe Lincoln has been measuring the growth of the plants over time to compare aeroponic gardening to traditional gardening.

Lincoln said the class is teaching him how to address needs such as healthier eating through communication and marketing. He also enjoys working with the vertical garden.

"It's more interactive than just reading from a book," he said. "It's a lot more hands-on, and I think that's great with learning, because sometimes you'll just be sitting in class being bored, and this really gets us up and moving around, and it's a great way to learn."

Junior Alayna Gauntt was involved in setting up the lighting for the vertical gardens. She said it has been interesting to learn about G2GG and to use a form of gardening that requires no sunlight or soil.

"Basically, this is a hands-on way to market while we're helping people," she said.

The class will end this month, and McGowan will teach the curriculum again next semester. She said if she's able to get more gardens, she would like the students to sell their produce at the New Albany Farmers Market or donate it to homeless shelters. G2GG often donates produce from the school's vertical gardens to kids in the Blessings in a Backpack program.

McGowan also plans to collaborate with a family consumer science class at Floyd Central so the students can learn to cook with the vegetables.

Earlier in the semester, Monique Kuykendoll Quarterman, a 2018 Hunger Innovation Fellow with the Lift a Life Foundation and the Community Foundation of Louisville, visited the class. She's working to research and address food insecurity in the Louisville area. She talked with the class about her own marketing and nonprofit experience.

Quarterman said she was excited to see young people such as those in McGowan's class and members of G2GG involved in efforts to promote healthy eating in the community.

"I'm really inspired by the fact that they have innovations that will really fuel tomorrow," she said. "They have fantastic ideas that the world needs to know about."

Hebert said she's enjoying seeing how the students have learned from the vertical gardens.

"It's been so fun to watch them grow and have interest in the technology that's used in the garden and for them to understand that to be healthier in their lives, they have to make healthier choices about what they put in their bodies," she said. "To live well and to learn well and earn well they have to eat well. They can't just keep putting junk in their bodies and expect to reach their full potential."

McGowan's class is advancing the goals of G2GG, she said.

"They're understanding the brand, they're learning how to communicate the benefits of the garden and how it works, and they're learning to communicate to students and to the community about the benefits of eating well and growing well," Hebert said.

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Source: News and Tribune

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Information from: News and Tribune, Jeffersonville, Ind., http://www.newsandtribune.com