Day 18 - What’s “Bean” going on at the Burlington Community Garden - BHS Science Center Staff

This post first appeared on the Burlington Science Center Blog

First-graders at Francis Wyman visited the Burlington Community Garden with Peter Coppola this month to harvest the beans they planted this Spring at the end of the 2014 school year. 

The students were very excited to see how much the beans had grown over the summer.

The first graders left a trail of bean pods walking back to the school. In the early 1800s the U.S. Government relocated the Cherokee Indian Nation from Georgia and Tennessee to Oklahoma. Along the way these native Americans dropped seeds; one of them, a bean grew and way saved by settlers and today it is known as the Cherokee trail of tears.

The first graders then took the bean plants back to the classroom and removed the beans from the plants.

Next they will let the bean pods dry out and then pack the beans in jars. Rice will be added to the jars to help keep the beans dry.   These beans will be planted in the spring in the Community Garden so that next year’s first graders can then harvest the beans from those plants.  Awsome!!

Be sure to check out Ms. Farmer’s blog here for more pictures of the bean harvesting.

Special thanks to Mr. Coppola for his work with the first grades.