Gardening with 3rd Grade Students on the Fort Apache Reservation

Abstract

One of the reasons that I would like to focus on health with my students is that there is a lot of diabetes in the White Mountain Apache tribe. American Indians are two times more likely to develop diabetes than non-Indians (Mihesuah, 2020). I would like my students to learn about gardening and learn how to plant their own food for their families. The first step when planting is to make sure they have a good place for a garden. Next, they need to check the soil to make sure that it is good for planting. Tammy Charley said she put new dirt or sand in her garden because sometimes the rain washed it out. She planted zucchini, squash, corn, carrots, lettuce, and chili (T. Charley, 2022).