•••••Teaching Mathematics in the Square Foot School Garden•••••

For students the planning, constructing, planting, and harvesting of a square foot garden is an exercise in mathematical thinking while gardening.
Gardening as a multifaceted occupation provides many opportunities for learning school subjects as outgrowths of human experience. The school garden, particularly the square foot garden, can teach mathematical principles and concepts in a real life situation.

•••••Math in the Construction of a Square Foot Garden•••••
A basic square foot garden as described by Mel Bartholomew, civil engineer who designed the growing boxes, is a 4’ x 4’ bottomless box. Most boxes are constructed from untreated rot resistant lumber like cedar, black locust, or redwood.

Bartholomew recommends using two 2” x 6” x 8’ boards cut in half to create one 4’ x 4’ box. The teacher would present word problems to students about the work at hand, e.g., how many 2” x 6” x 8’ boards are needed to make one 4’ x 4’ box? Or, how many board feet are needed to make ten 4’ x 4’ boxes?

As teams of students measure and mark off 4’ lengths of lumber, parent volunteers saw the lumber. Teams construct one box per team. Each box will then be divided into squares requiring one-foot measurements along each side of the box. After soil is placed in the box, a wooden grid will be placed atop the box to delineate each square foot planting zone.

Once the grid is atop the box, students can see a multiplication grid of four squares by four squares equaling sixteen one-foot squares. The square foot garden is a fun way to practice multiplication tables and visualize square root.

Have students measure the perimeter of their box and create a number sentence or formula for the perimeter. They can calculate the area of the square using the grid.

After boxes are constructed, they are put on top of the ground in a well-drained spot receiving 6-8 hours of sunlight per day.

Asking students to draw a scale diagram of the box brings the concept of ratio to the garden project. The scale model will be used in planning the layout of crops for each square foot block too. Source: https://writemypaperbro.com/term-paper-help/

•••••Volume in a Square Foot Garden•••••
The 4’ x 4’ box must be filled with potting mix before planting. Potting mix comes in bags by weight and cubic feet. To order soil for the square foot students must learn how to calculate the space or volume of the box in cubic feet. Then they must know how many cubic feet are in each bag of commercial mix and determine how many bags to purchase.

A more challenging mathematical task for middle school students is to use Bartholomew’s proportions for homemade soil mix, calculating how much vermiculite, compost, and peat moss. The total volume would be apportioned among the “soil of thirds” and mixed onsite.

•••••Spacing Seeds or Transplants in a Square Foot Garden•••••
Seed packages and transplant tags contain mathematical data needed for successfully spacing selected crops. Many of the numbers assume row gardening instead of block gardening used in the square foot method.

As a general rule, larger plants like tomato, pepper, and corn require one square foot each. Smaller plants like radishes, lettuce, and green onions need less space per plant. Help students read seed packages to find the spacing requirements after thinning. Then students must calculate how many seeds or transplants will fit into each square. They should use scale drawings to key in the crops.

Bartholomew gives diagrams for spacing various crops in his books. For example, if lettuce plants are to be spaced 6” apart, then one square foot holds 4 transplants. If radish seeds require a 3” spacing, then one square holds 16 radish seeds. Use Bartholomew’s charts only to check student thinking, not as a substitute for their thinking. More at https://writemypaperbro.com/narrative-essay-topics/

Ask students to write word problems from the seed packet information on the spacing of crops to show their understanding.

•••••The Mathematics of Harvest•••••
How much produce does each square foot garden box produce? Teams can answer the question by weighing the harvest, counting the fruits of their labor, and recording data on a variety of graphs and spreadsheets.

With photography, calendars and journals, students will be able to keep data on length of the growing season of each crop too.

The square foot garden maximizes the yield at harvest time and ripens the development of the mathematical mind.