Several Ball State University students are spending their summer days at a local education program centered around a gardening project. The Ball State students are working with Muncie grade school students attending Motivate Our Minds this summer. The area grade school students are participating in a summer-long program called Growing Entrepreneurs in which they learn to grow produce in their own garden.
Motivate Our Minds is a supplementary education program that teaches students between first and eighth grades. Monique Armstrong, newly appointed executive director of Motivate Our Minds, said the summer program was designed to make the learning experience more interesting for students.
"We still want to give the children the fundamentals like literacy and math, but it's summer so we need to make them feel like they are learning without feeling like they are being taught," she said.
Armstrong said while the program was designed to improve the education experience for the students, she also has learned a great deal from it.
"I started here in February, and I don't have a green thumb," she said. "But I think that might be changing."
Michael Reed, first-grade teacher at West View Elementary School, helped Motivate Our Minds in the garden Wednesday. Having lived on a farm his whole life, Reed said he was surprised by how eager the students were to help in the garden.
"There were some real good workers," Reed said. "There were some girls that picked it up real well."
Reed said he believed gardening was an important skill.
"It's good they learn this stuff," he said. "It's something they all need to learn."
Between Monday and Thursday, the classrooms are on a rotation in which at least one class works in the garden for at least one hour every day. The classes walk three blocks from the Motivate Our Minds building on East Highland Avenue to the garden, which is located near the corner of North Burns and East Lowell streets.
The garden is comprised of dozens of 3-foot-by-3-foot plots in which the students have planted a wide assortment of crops. Among them are cabbage, eggplant, squash and watermelons.
Minnetrista Cultural Center will sell the produce grown by the students.
Erica Wright, Ball State University senior public communications major, began volunteering at Motivate Our Minds in May and said she saw every day how much the students found pleasure in the gardening experience.
"I believe the children enjoy it," Wright said. "They always come back with smiles on their faces."
The students would benefit greatly from the experience in the garden this summer, she said.
"You can learn a lot just from gardening," she said. "You learn how to grow things, you learn how to store things, you learn how to keep things up and keep things clean."
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