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During the time they spend tending the vibrant gardens flanking their school, the students of the Graham Academy aren’t thinking about things like autism and other emotional challenges.

Instead, the students are focused on watering plants, pulling weeds, harvesting vegetables and watching for monarch butterflies fluttering around the milkweed. They also ponder solutions to the common problems that arise with every garden, such as insects devouring young plants.

The garden is as good as any classroom.

“When you have kids with autism it really is a benefit to see all these intricate learning things with nature,” said Ryan Binkley, the school’s public relations coordinator. “This program teaches them to adapt and to see the process. You can’t have monarch butterflies if you don’t have milkweed, and they grow it from seed.”

The Graham Academy moved to its Kingston location from Luzerne two years ago. This summer is the first season for the gardens, and the program grows more than vegetables.

It reaps success.

Along one side of the school are extensive milkweed beds and vegetable gardens, complete with tomatoes, squash, sweet corn and potatoes. In the front are several fruit trees and other vegetable plants. The gardening program is led by Richard Mitchell, the school’s environmental coordinator, who said the students not only grasp the process of raising a plant from a seed, but they also take pride in it.

“All these things that people say kids with autism can’t do, they can,” Mitchell said. “Every one of these kids is capable. We just have to teach them the right way.”

Part of that teaching involves letting the students experience failure and overcome it at the same time.

This summer a groundhog devoured broccoli the students had planted. It was a disappointment, but also a chance to problem-solve by erecting barriers to protect the plants.

For every gardening failure, though, there are many more successes.

Perhaps the most exciting success so far this summer were monarch butterfly eggs that were laid on the milkweed leaves.

When one of the eggs hatched, the monarch caterpillar ate the leaves from the host milkweed plant and then formed a chrysalis on a nearby vent.

“Every day the kids checked on it,” Binkley said. “They were so eager for it to hatch because it came from their milkweed plants. One morning it hatched and they got to watch it.”

Lessons from the garden aren’t limited to outside the school. As the vegetables are harvested, many are utilized in the school’s cafeteria where students enjoy the final step in the gardening process.

For student Kyle Long, that final step was his favorite.

“We picked kale, cooked it and made kale pizza,” Long said. “We also made arugula tomato salad. It all tastes better with things that we grew.”

Mitchell designed the garden program to keep it running most of the year. When the weather turns cold he and the students will plant vegetables that do well in cooler temperatures and utilize small greenhouses.

With so much variety in the garden, Mitchell said there is always a new task for the students and a different benefit each day.

“We’re always transplanting, planting new seeds, composting, watching insects and harvesting,” Mitchell said. “Kids pick out their favorite plants and they take ownership of the process. They come out every day and go right to work.”

With a successful first season, the school hopes to expand the gardening program next year. More fruit trees will be planted, the vegetable garden will be extended and there is a possibility the students could operate a produce stand in the school’s parking lot.

“We’re excited about where this can go and the opportunities it can provide,” Binkley said. “We have students that are non-verbal to those who are cognizant enough to go to college. You just have to find the way they learn best, and the garden is something that offers hands-on learning in so many different ways.”

Richard Mitchell, environmental instructor at Graham Academy in Kingston, shows a group of students how to pot a milkweed plant.
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/web1_TTL073115Monarch22.jpg.optimal.jpgRichard Mitchell, environmental instructor at Graham Academy in Kingston, shows a group of students how to pot a milkweed plant. Clark Van Orden | Times Leader

By Tom Venesky

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Reach Tom Venesky at 570-991-6395 or on Twitter @TLTomVenesky