Design Ignites Change - Projects - 'GROW YOUR OWN'

Kansas City Art Institute

Schoolyard garden programs are growing in popularity in schools all over the U.S. They help children learn about nutrition and healthy eating habits in a hands-on experience. Unfortunately, many low-resource schools are missing out on this incredible new movement due to Governmental formalities and limitations, as well as insufficient funding to implement such programs. To combat this problem, I have created a simple system that could easily be incorporated into a third grade classroom curriculum. It is a garden kit which includes all of the components and instructions needed for a 3rd grade student to grow their own indoor vegetable garden.

Dustin Maberry
dustinmaberry.com
dustinmaberry@gmail.com

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April 17, 2012

Here are two different packages for the 'GROW YOUR OWN' indoor garden kit. I created realistic, bold and colorful illustrations for the outside, and the contents of the kit are listed on the back.

I used environmentally friendly applications, like the bio-degradable peat pots that can be directly transplanted into the ground, and the package wrap is comprised of only one sheet of 11"x17" paper.

It consists of a bio-degradable peat pot planter, a vegetable seed packet, six expandable soil pellets, planting instructions, and educational information about the health benefits of the vegetable.

This is a third grade student sewing lettuce seeds in a working prototype that I created for this kit.

That prototype yielded germination of the seeds and REAL GROWTH!

Low-resource school systems, such as the four elementary schools in the Kansas Rosedale community often lack the funding or motivation to implement an addition to their curriculum such as a schoolyard garden. But if a school cannot establish a schoolyard garden, I thought it could be easily done at a smaller scale.

I have developed an indoor vegetable garden kit for 3rd grade students. Each student would receive their own kit. Students would grow a variety of vegetables as a class, and each student could teach the others about the vegetable that they are growing, facilitating a collaborative environment where knowledge is shared.

'GROW YOUR OWN' – Indoor Garden Kit

Kansas City Art Institute

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