Colegio Loyola Plants the First Seeds of the Year in Its School Garden

Colegio Loyola is one of the star schools participating in the EcoHuertos Program, an initiative of Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (GFDD)’s Dominican Republic Environmental Film Festival (DREFF). It was one of the first educational centers to become part of the Program in 2011,
and in 2015 a large number of its students and teachers are taking charge of the school garden, which is the pride of the community. In this photo story we can see several student groups planting this first year’s seeds.

Colegio Loyola’s garden has grown steadily since 2011, and more and more teachers have been joining in and building interest among the students. In the 2013-2014 school year, teacher Diana Murcia took over the course on Agriculture and the garden made a very positive change, as the Program Coordinator, Cristiana Cruz Menier, says. At that time, the Induction Workshop to the
EcoHuertos Program for teachers, support staff and administrative staff, took place to successfully include them in the garden project. In addition, third-year high school students were taught the Basic Farming course. A new space for the garden, which is visible to all and is much larger, allows more students and teachers to be involved.

"Students and teachers reuse and recycle containers for growing plants. Colegio Loyola is one of the education centers where
we can carry out all the stages during the school year," explains the Program Coordinator, Cristiana Cruz Menier.

Currently, teachers of various courses at Colegio Loyola rotate in the garden with their students, applying the scientific method taught through EcoHuertos. The garden is used as a laboratory for the courses on natural sciences.

In these images, we can observe a number of groups planting the 2015 seeds:

• Third grade elementary school children planting cubanela peppers and radishes with teacher Wendy Andújar.
• Third year high school students with teacher Diana Murcia, creating tomatoes, eggplants, leeks, radishes, beets and red peppers seedbeds. They are using recycled eggs cartons collected from their homes to create the seedbeds.
• First year school children in the garden with their teacher Martha Gómez, planting radishes and
  beets.