A 4-season greenhouse big enough to hold a class of seed-planting students is ready for action at Chimacum schools. Under the guidance of Garden Coordinator, Corey Chin, the "class house" will focus on how to propagate and grow plants. Another greenhouse on campus, located in the High School Garden, creates production quantities for the Culinary Arts class, school kitchens, and school-based enterprises—seed production, Chimacum Spice herb blend, and eventually the Food Truck. (More on this exciting project soon!)
The new greenhouse structure is tricked out to capture rain water so students can learn about water conservation and drip irrigation. It also provides students and plants a comfortable temperature year round, and allows enough light in to continue teaching even in the dark days of winter. It even has a weather station that supports the automated systems for warming and cooling, and from which students can monitor weather conditions and track long-term climate data without leaving the main building. (We will report later this year on how the classes and projects are taking root—but we know Al Gonzalez’s 6th Grade Science class will be on it as part of their ongoing Ocean Guardian Schools work on climate data.)
Funding & Construction
The greenhouse project, a Robot Coupe food processor, a power wash sink for the school kitchens, and the garden at Chimacum Creek Primary school were all covered under the “Healthy Kids - Healthy Schools” grant from the Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, (OSPI) totaling $116,672. Greenhouse project costs exceeding the grant budget were covered by the district Capital Project Funds. Together these infrastructure upgrades support Chimacum’s goals of building their Farm to School program—an umbrella term that includes expanding the use of locally grown food in school meals, boosting food and nutrition education across the grades, and teaching kids about growing and tasting fresh food in school gardens.
According to Assistant Superintendent Art Clarke, "The greenhouse was purchased from Greenhouse Megastore which included construction plans for submittal to Jefferson County for building permits. Director of Maintenance, Henry Florschutz, was the project manager and he and his staff were key to completing the project."
The project was started in the summer of 2020 with Henry and his crew removing an old portable classroom from the site. They then extended the water line to provide irrigation to the garden and greenhouse. To add an outside hand-washing station to the garden, they recycled a sink from the old elementary school by tapping into water and septic lines of the newly refurbished elementary school.
With the addition of this beautiful new greenhouse, the Chimacum Elementary Garden can really become the all-season learning laboratory at the heart of the school’s mission to use Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Math as a foundation for unique and powerful learning experiences rooted in community. A heartfelt thanks to all who worked to make this project a success! It will be supporting student learning at Chimacum Schools for many years to come.
Other construction partners include:
DD Electric provided wiring and posts for the greenhouse.
Tres West Engineers Inc. supplied the electrical plans.
Precision Contracting Services installed the greenhouse.