By Betsy Smith 

One very special way that The Herb Society of America shares the gift of herbs is by awarding Samull Classroom Herb Garden Grants. Each year fifteen grants are awarded for $300 each. Read about some of the exciting projects from some amazing schools across the country that have received these grants.

The garden program at the Tucson Waldorf School (Tucson, AZ) recently completed an herb garden in their container garden area. This collection of stock tanks and pots is located near the entrance of the school and is available for people to admire, learn from, work on, and glean. It is their hope that community members will stop by the garden and collect herbs to complement their meals. 

Somerset Academy Boco (Boca Raton, FL) reported that with the HSA Samull Grant, they established an herb garden while implementing these learning objectives: 1. Apply practical knowledge in the form of gardening skills; 2. Learn how herbs can flavor food in healthful ways; 3. Learn traditional culinary uses of herbs, including globally diverse tea-drinking customs, which are richly steeped in culture and history.

Students at Sand Creek Elementary (Highlands Ranch, CO) had the opportunity to get involved in several aspects of gardening – seed starting, weeding and preparing raised beds, and planting. Students had the opportunity to learn about the carbon cycle (the carbon dioxide/oxygen relationship that we have with plants), vocabulary, and definitions of planting and parts of plants. Students also learned about mindfulness, our senses, and how plants influence our feelings. Students were surprisingly excited about weeding parts of the garden and finding and relocating worms.

Students at Williams Science and Fine Arts (Topeka, KS) have been very busy growing and working with herbs. They have developed an indoor herb garden in our greenhouse. They have learned about preserving herbs by dehydrating our harvested herbs and then storing them in containers for later use. They’ve also cooked several recipes using our herbs such as scissor salsa, pesto noodles, and chamomile tea.

The Maple School (Northbrook, IL) 6th grade Herb Garden began their herb gardening project by learning how to read a seed packet. This lesson proved to be especially useful the following day when students were planting and needed to reference the back for the information specific to their type of seed. They used three inch pots that would be directly transplanted into our six garden beds outside. They filled the pots with an organic seed starting soil, collected the pots in aluminum baking pans, covered them with plastic lids, and placed them in our southern facing window sill.

One aspect of the project for Elvin Hill Elementary (Columbiana, AL) was Social Emotional Learning. They started with 3 big plants at the front of the room: lavender, rosemary, and oregano. Students would come by and pinch off pieces. Then smaller herbs in pots were brought in to keep at each student’s desk for the day. The students loved having plants on their desk during independent work time. They worked the herbs into daily reading and writing lessons. They talked about the sensory benefits of smell, texture, and visual appeal. Students said they felt an overwhelming sense of calmness and pride taking care of the plants. This picture shows the library for the adopt-an-herb program.

Samull Classroom Herb Garden Grant applications can be submitted August 1- October 1 of each year. The application will be posted on Herbsociety.org under Get Involved, Scholarships and Grants.

Learn more details about these amazing projects and many others this Thursday, July 27, at 1pm Eastern for the webinar: Opening the Gift of Herbs with Kids. Our webinars are free to The Herb Society of America members and $7.50 for guests. Become a member today, and enjoy all of our webinars for free along with access to the webinar library with over fifty program titles. To register, visit https://www.herbsociety.org/hsa-learn/herb-education/hsa-webinars/

Photo Credits: 1)Students plant and water a raised herb garden (courtesy of Tuscon Waldorf School); 2) Snapshots of students learning different gardening skills (courtesy of Somerset Academy Boco); 3) A girl learns how to sow seeds (courtesy of Sand Creek Elementary); 4) Kids touch and taste different herbs (courtesy of Williams Science and Fine Arts); 5) Trays of pots ready to be sown with seeds (courtesy of Maple School); 6) Adopt-an-herb program (courtesy of the author)