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Throughout the past years, NS has made many efforts to get a school greenhouse built. With many complications and setbacks, the project kept getting delayed, until now. A recent confirmation was given, so Nexus Greenhouse Systems will construct the greenhouse for a cost of $80,000.
The greenhouse will be 24 feet by 40 feet and will be attached to the south end of the welding shop in the new section of the school. The greenhouse will include a number of growing tables, a climate controlling system that will allow for year-round functionality, and endless opportunities.
Because the greenhouse will primarily be used for agricultural classes, Mr. Kevin Allen, teacher of many agricultural classes, will be in charge of the usage of the greenhouse.
“There’s a lot of options with the greenhouse, we have plant and soil and we have biology,” Allen said, “There’s been other classes to show some interest.”
With this new project, the agricultural classes will be able to experiment with growing plants, mutating plants, and overall enhance their knowledge of the process to keep a plant alive.
“We’ll try and keep it as productive as we can,” Allen said, “We’ll do some seed germination and then it’ll also give us an opportunity in the spring for some plants.”
While Allen is unsure what plants will be grown, he has had some idea for their uses outside of the greenhouse.
“We’ll probably market a little bit of it, bring in some income to kind of offset the greenhouse,” Allen said. “There is a program, From School to Table, where we’ll actually grow some food plants out here, lettuce, tomatoes, and things like that, that we will actually be able to put into the kitchen and students can eat.”
The greenhouse has much potential, but Allen feels it is best to keep reality at the top of his list.
“In order to keep a greenhouse up and going, there’s a lot of hours,” Allen said.
Allen also believes that although he is likely going to be very involved with everything going on inside the greenhouse, he wants to ensure that students are the main contributors to the project.
“We’ll try and keep the students involved as much as possible. It’s their projects and they’re going to have ownership in it,” Allen said.
