Students study in on-campus garden

EDITOR'S NOTE: Due to an editing error, this article incorrectly identified the professor whose class will spend the semester testing different soil combinations. Ray Gless' students will be studying these combinations. The article has been changed to reflect this correction.

Starting this semester, some agriculture students will have the opportunity to move out from the four walls of a traditional indoor laboratory to learn their trade hands-on in a newly built on-campus garden.

Two professors moved three of their spring agriculture classes into the newly unveiled classroom space of the Public Health Garden, which is located on the hill next to the public health school and is still under construction. Students taking INAG 105: Soils and Fertilizers, INAG 205: Analyzing Alternative Enterprises and INAG 248: Topics in Sustainable Agriculture this semester will use the garden as an outdoor laboratory space to learn about proper fertilizing, irrigation technology and how plants grow in different soils.

Cheng-I Wei, dean of the agriculture and natural resources college, said the garden gives students the real-world learning experience they need to tackle major issues in the agriculture field.

"The course[s] will teach people the proper techniques and proper knowledge," Wei said. "[The garden provides an] opportunity to learn more about 21st century agriculture in the U.S. and how we can fight the war on hunger."

Agriculture lecturer Ellen Polishuk, who teaches two of the courses that will be held in the garden this semester, said her students will be composting, while agriculture professor Ray Gless' students will examine how different plants react to different combinations of soil. Polishuk said she expects the material taught in the classroom to come to life when students put it into practice in the garden.

"Demonstrating how plants grow differently under different fertility systems — seeing is believing," Polishuk said. "You can see someone's slideshow, but it's so much more effective when it happens right in front of you."

The garden — a project that began last spring funded by a $15,000 grant from the Green Fund — is not just for agriculture majors, said Allison Lilly, president of the Public Health Garden Club. Lilly said any student can come "do yoga, eat tomatoes, do their homework." The next step will be to build terraced community planting beds for vegetables on the hillside and plant a small orchard in front of Eppley Recreation Center, Lilly said.

"I think it will be a success once students just go and sit there," she said.

Several students said giving agriculture students this learning space was a smart move to prepare them for the real world.

"I think it's crucial to have any kind of hands-on experience when you are studying the environment or agriculture," said sophomore journalism major Kirsten Petersen, a student writer for an agricultural newsletter. "You really have to get your hands dirty to understand the soil and understand the land."

Sophomore accounting major Sarah Young said it is important for students of all majors to have those kind of opportunities.

"It definitely lets you know what's going on in the real world, so instead of just reading about it in a book or doing a homework assignment on it, you actually learn what you'd be doing in your job," Young said.

gray@umdbk.com