His class attendance went from 40% to 93%. Because of a garden?

[eridani]

http://www.upworthy.com/his-class-attendance-went-from-40-to-93-because-of-a-garden

During his work, Stephen discovered that most of the kids who are considered learning disabled wouldn't have been if they'd had proper prenatal nutrition.

Then fate set him and his students on a new path. One day, someone sent him a donation of daffodil bulbs.

Finding that the bulbs had turned into flowers behind the radiator inspired them to dream big.
So he and the kids created the Green Bronx Machine. The Green Bronx Machine is a nonprofit devoted to growing healthy food curriculums and economies locally. It teaches kids how to be healthy and provides them with healthy food options, which in turn helps them focus and perform better in and out of school.

Together, they've created a school curriculum around healthy eating and gardening. The students grow food (30,000 pounds of it to date), and they create sustainable gardens on roofs and in classrooms all over New York (creating jobs for some of the teens in the program). The kids have significantly increased their academic achievement.

And even better? The students get to eat the things they grow and bring food home, too, while learning how to farm and manage food production at the same time.

[RandySF]

1. Kids LOVE gardens.

My son's school has a garden and tending it is one of the students' favorite activities.

[longship]

2. I love this kind of stuff.

It isn't cookie cutter education; it is just education.

R&K

[narnian60]

3. EXACTLY!

[kwassa]

4. A local teacher did the same thing. Silver Spring, MD.

The man was a saint, in my book.

He was devoted to helping the immigrant kids in front of him, teaching in Spanish in an elementary immersion program. He created gardens behind the elementary school for the same purpose as the story above.

And, as the universe is unfair, he died suddenly one day in his mid 50s of a massive heart attack, just before taking his special needs son to an operation at Johns Hopkins. His wife had died of cancer 6 months before this. A horrible story.

[openheart]

5. It's a good way of education!

This way increase students attendance to school. It's a good way of education!