Recently, the New York Restoration Project has started to collaborate with Dewey and is giving Dewey a hand in making it a greener environment than it already is. It’s early November, and their building team, led by Jason Sheets, has already spent two days clearing out the floors of the garden and building 12 new raised beds for us. Their master carpenters, Andrew Stewart and Dustin Thomsen, made a shade structure to help turn the garden into a space students can use as a classroom space. And recently, on November 22, they’ve sent Urban Agriculture Director Corey Blant and Urban Agriculture Manager Genevieve Harding to give their first lesson on ethnobotany to students.
Picture of the garden at the end of the day
What happened:
During the event, NYRP Corey Blant and Genevieve Harding came to John Dewey to give their first lesson on ethnobotany on cover crops. Mr. Blant started with pictures of the cover crops they’re going to plant: oats, peas, and hairy vetch. He then goes on to talk about the importance of cover plants and how they benefit our crops. Afterwards, Ms. Harding starts to demonstrate the process of planting the cover crops. She starts by spreading the seeds all around the soil beds and starts to cover them with hay while explaining how hay benefits the crop by acting as an extra layer of protection. Lastly, it’s up to the students of ethnobotany to work together and do the same for the rest of the beds before the end of the day. They started to split into groups in charge of different tasks, like spreading the seeds or the hay. Everyone plays their own part while Ms. Harding and Mr. Blant guide them throughout.
Picture of Mr.Blant and Ms.Harding’s demonstration
How will this benefit the people of Dewey?
Other than the learning part of the event, the garden made by the NYRP also provides other benefits to other students. According to Mr.Moody, the ethnobotany teacher, “it’s going to be used by the entire school. and “I am offering tours to teachers and their classes to take their classes out there, and I’m going to show them how to get there”. The benefits can also be helpful and educational. For example according to Ethnobotany student Emily Persad “I very much enjoyed it, it was not only informational but also fun and I’ve always been interested in maintaining and making my own little garden one day, so this information would help me greatly for when that time comes.”
Future plans:
This isn’t going to be the only event the NYRP is going to do with John Dewey. According to Director Corey Blant, “We are still working on a specific calendar of sessions but will most likely come to teach about specific topics like planting and trellising and will continue with other timely topics throughout the summer and into the fall.” So expect more events like this one to happen in the future.
How can you help?
Just in case you, as a student at John Dewey High School, want to help with this collaboration, you can!. According to the words of Mr. Moody, “I want as many people in the school to get involved because the more people, the more opportunity there is for people to learn.” So if you want to join on February 13th, the Gardening Club will open up again, and there will be opportunities there to help with the collab.
Why us?
So, “Why Dewey?” is probably a question that is circling around your mind at the moment. Well, it’s not really just Dewey. According to Mr. Blant, “NYRP is committed to partnering with low-income and/or underserved communities throughout New York City. We have a long history of working in all kinds of spaces, but especially schools. We chose to partner with John Dewey because of the enthusiasm and excitement that teachers like Mr. Moody have already cultivated in the building through his hydroponic and compost projects.”
Conclusion:
And so NYRP’s time here in Dewey has been very beneficial to all of us. They’ve renovated our gardens and taught students about the essentials of planting and taking care of plants. We look forward to collaborating with them further throughout the seasons, and they too look forward to it, as in Mr. Blant’s own words, “Genevieve and I are excited to spend the next 12 months collaborating with the Garden Club and Ethnobotany classes at John Dewey and teaching about best practices in food production in NYC at every point throughout the season.”
