Dubai schools encouraged to teach children how to grow fruit and vegetables

School says that children who plant their own vegetables eat healthier and an expert from New York says it improves school attendance and grades.

Pupils and staff at Our Own Indian School have been growing fruit and vegetables for the past year. Pawan Singh / The National

DUBAI // Schools across the emirate are being encouraged to create their own fruit and vegetable gardens, as a way of promoting healthy eating and to teach pupils science in a more practical way.

At the moment 45 schools – a quarter of private schools in Dubai – have some kind of vegetable garden, and it is something the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) is keen to encourage.

The schemes are being run either as extra-curricular activities, or as an integral part of school curriculums.

For the past year pupils and staff at Our Own Indian School in Al Quoz have been on a mission to create a fruit and vegetable garden.

They grow everything from ­tomatoes and eggplants to chillies and long beans, so ­pupils can learn how to grow and cook their own vegetables.

“I had gone on a trip to Miracle Garden and saw how the plants were being grown vertically, and that gave me the inspiration to do something similar at the school,” said Lalitha Suresh, the school’s principal.

“We are short on space so, initially, we decided to grow okra on grills, and that was so successful that we expanded to [other] vegetables.”

It has become such a success that between 10 and 12 kilogrammes of vegetables are produced every week, with much of it being sold to teachers and parents.

All 3,640 pupils at the school are involved in the project in some way.

Kindergarten children learn entrepreneurship skills by selling the vegetables, the middle school sponsors plants for Dh10, and senior school pupils cook the produce in the school.

In a future project pupils will test what effect music has on the growth of plants and vegetables.

Soorya Rajesh, a 16-year-old pupil, said the garden had inspired her to grow her own vegetables at home.

“It has been really interesting to learn about plants, and now I grow tomatoes, chillies and basil at home,” she said.

Simin Chunawala, also 16, said that despite the lack of resources and space at the school, growing the plants vertically allowed for a whole range of vegetables.

“We’ve learnt a lot about the science behind how plants grow and it has been a lot of fun,” she said.

Aiswarya Pamanabhan said middle-school pupils used the vegetables from the garden to make salads for the kindergarten children.

“The high-school pupils recently did an experiment to find out how nutrient levels compared between our vegetables and those bought from outside, and they found that ours were healthier,” the 16-year-old said.

Similar projects were discussed at the KHDA’s What Works Steam workshops, held on Monday at the Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Medical Centre at Dubai Healthcare City.

Stephen Ritz, founder of the Green Bronx Machine project in New York City, spoke about his experience of starting a fruit and vegetable garden at the underprivileged school he was teaching at. “In order to be well read, you have to be well fed and we all need to grow healthier schools,” he said.

His approach led to dramatic improvements, with attendances increasing from 40 per cent to 90 per cent, grades in science improving and 100 per cent graduation levels.

Mr Ritz is expected to return in March to work more closely with schools and help them to develop their own gardens. “Children who grow their own fruit and vegetables are also more likely to eat healthily, that is certainly something we’ve seen at my school,” he said.

Abdulla Al Karam, director general of the KHDA, said private schools had autonomy over how they operated and could implement such gardens outside their curriculums.