Steeleville district receives rural education grant
<span>STEELEVILLE -- Steeleville District 138 has received a $10,000 grant from America's Farmers Grow Rural Education to continue to develop its Innovation Garden and build a greenhouse at Steeleville High School.</span>
<span>Farmers who nominated the school district, as well as representatives from the school and the Monsanto Fund, attended a check presentation on Monday at SHS during the Lady Warriors' home volleyball game with Valmeyer.</span>
<span>"It means a lot, we're really excited," said Steeleville High School Principal Jennifer Haertling. "(Former agricultural education teacher) Blake (Colclasure) really put a lot of hours in and (new agricultural education teacher) Sarah (McKinnies) picked up where he left off."</span>
<span>The Innovation Garden and future greenhouse will be incorporated into the district's agriculture, math, science and business curricula, and all students from kindergarten through 12th grade will have the opportunity to use them. </span>
<span>"It's exciting for the kids and the community," Haertling said. "We're going to have to come up with more funding for the greenhouse, but we've got enough to start."</span>
<span>The Innovation Garden and learning laboratory will consist of the student-run greenhouse and plots of fruit, vegetables and native prairie beds.</span>
<span>The greenhouse will demonstrate horticulture crop production through both traditional and modern methods, and the plots will be used for student research projects.</span>
<span>"It is really exciting, especially being a new teacher coming into that," McKinnies said of the grant. "Blake had done a lot of work and he found out over the summer that we had been awarded that grant."</span>
<span>According to Colclasure, who applied for the grant, the new facilities will allow students to get dirty and have fun while using math and science concepts.</span>
<span>"The Innovation Garden and learning laboratory will allow students to become leaders of their own learning," said Colclasure in a news release.</span><span>"Ultimately, these additions will strengthen the district's agriculture department and will likely attract non-traditional agriculture students to become interested in the industry."</span>
<span>This year, the school district also received an educational starter kit from Monsanto Company to help establish a pollinator garden - which will give students first-hand knowledge of the critical role habitat plays in providing bees and butterflies with food, shelter and places to lay eggs.</span>
<span>"I would like to see a greenhouse hopefully by the end of next year," McKinnies said. "It may not be up, but we would have the materials to build one."</span>
<span>Since 2011, Grow Rural Education has awarded more than $9 million to help keep rural public school districts growing.</span>
<span>The program works with farmers to nominate public school districts to compete for math and science grants of $10,000 or $25,000. Grant applications are reviewed and finalists selected by a panel of teachers.</span>
<span>Winning applications are chosen by an advisory council comprised of farmers from across the U.S.</span>
<span>"Eventually, we'd like to have something the community could buy," McKinnies said, using the example of hanging baskets for Mother's Day.</span>