#35 School Gardening Project

[스티븐스 대사]

Towards the end of May, I had a very welcome break in a fairly intense week when a group of fifth grade students from Duksoo Elementary School visited my residence in Seoul to begin a class study on gardening and growing vegetables.  

When I visited Washington, I met the Secretary of Agriculture who comes from the great farming state of Iowa and he knew that we were going to begin this project.  In fact, the idea for this project was inspired by the First Lady’s work with Washington, D.C. students who’ve always lived in the city and have never had a chance to grow vegetables or tend to a garden.  As I have the rare privilege of having some land in the center of a very crowded city, I thought some of Seoul’s city students might enjoy a similar experience.

 Ambassador Stephens with Deoksoo Elementary School students

During their first visit in May, the students began to plant crops and conduct experiments.  Duksoo Elementary School is located near my residence and while the students worked on their planting, I talked to the school’s principal.  He’s actually from Chungchungnam-do and said that, like many Koreans of his age, he comes from a family with roots in the countryside.  We both reflected on the fact that gardening and planting crops is a very new experience for children who are city born and bred, both in Korea and in the United States. 

Students participate in the School Gardening Project at the Ambassador’s residence

Each group of three or four students is growing a different crop and they planted one pot using soil from the ground and the other using enriched soil.  This way they can see the difference in the growth of their crops depending on the soil type and study the importance of nutrients in the soil.  And in addition to what the students have planted, we have a long-standing tradition at the residence of growing our greens in the summer, and with the spring rains they’re doing pretty well.

I will keep you posted on how things go with all of our gardening this summer.

 

[Seoulite Henry]

사진 설명에 만 "deoksoo"로 고쳐졌고, 영문판 본문의 두군데(제2행과 제10행)는 아직도 "DUKSOO" 이군요~
한번 더 수정을 정중히 요청 드립니다.

서울덕수초등학교 학교운영위원장(7기),
서울덕수초등학교 총동문회 사무총장 정찬우(51회) 배상