Brian Schiavone ’12
Staff Writer

It’s hard to believe that the Westport of today, with its busy downtown area and modern buildings, was once a prosperous agricultural community and the leading onion-growing town in the country.

Now, all that’s left is a trace of what our town used to be: an old barn here, a stone wall there, and rows upon rows of athletic fields.

In the spring of 2009 a team of teachers, along with help from the Green Village Initiative, set out to bring agriculture back to Westport. In order to accomplish this they built the edible garden.

According to Aitkenhead, the edible garden has three purposes: to raise awareness about the benefits of growing food locally and organically, to reconnect people to nature, and to educate people about where their food comes from and how it is produced.

AP Environmental Science teacher, Michael Aitkenhead, along with other Staples teachers, helped to transform the Edible Garden from an idea to a successful resource used in multiple classes.

“We’re using the facility to try and encourage more households in town to start a garden and grow food,” Aitkenhead said.

Although the project is relatively new, Aitkenhead describes it as successful in accomplishing what they had intended. So far, the garden has been utilized by Aitkenhead’s AP Environmental class as well as culinary and horticulture classes.

“We’re still very early in the process,” Aitkenhead said. “Over time we hope to incorporate the use of the garden in more classes.”

Heather Morley, who teaches science at Staples, envisions the garden as a cross-disciplined learning tool. Morley suggests branching out to other departments, possibly even language arts.

“Something as simple as making salsa [in Spanish class]” Morley said.

Biology could also benefit from the garden. Morley’s ideas include using pea plants to model Gregor Mendel’s famous genetic studies.

Not only Staples is benefiting from the garden. Both pre-school and Kindergarten classes have made trips to see it.

“They can learn about how things grow,” Morley said. “It’s a useful tool.”

The Staples garden has been a huge success with all ages, and Aitkenhead hopes to have gardens installed in all of the Westport schools.

Morley thinks that kids would profit from the experience as well.

“We want to teach students that they can garden, and that they can use those skills in the future.” Morley said.