Spring will be extra green in Brock (TX) next year, as students begin digging into their future inside a greenhouse planted on their high school campus.
Senior Mya Alford, one of the students enrolled in the school’s horticulture pathway, understands the pride that comes with nurturing plants: “Being able to see something start from a seed and watch it blossom and grow and go through its different stages” is what makes it so beautiful, she said Thursday, sitting in the ag building with fellow horticulturists.
“You could feed a hungry person, with the crops that you grow,” sophomore Avery Hyatt added.
"Students will plant annuals for landscape design once they get into their new classroom," ag instructor Dave Marcath said. Fellow agriculture teacher Laura Horner said students will learn hydroponics and will create landscape projects for one campus each year in the 3A district. “We also plan to have horticulture and crop projects in the greenhouse,” Horner said.
Groundbreaking for the greenhouse was held two weeks ago on the lawn immediately west of the ag building, and “it should be up by Christmastime,” high school Principal Bobby Atchley said.
The Brock ISD school board in September authorized $14,000, from excess 2019 bond funds, for the greenhouse. Board President Bill Cooper said trustees are “so happy” to include the greenhouse among students’ tools for success.
“Computer science in the information age is definitely awesome,” he said. “We talk about horticulture and much of that from a computer standpoint now.” Watering regimens and climate control, he said, can be programmed.
“Most of it can be done from a cell phone,” Marcath said. “We have a lot of people who may or may not know that horticulture, or plant science, is their passion in life.”
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