Jones Valley Teaching Farm expands Honeybee Project through Alabama Power Foundation grant
An Alabama Power Foundation grant is helping Jones Valley Teaching Farm provide an A-plus bee education. (contributed)
Bethany Boatwright believes children can learn a lot from honeybees. They can learn to have respect for nature and an appreciation for time outside. They can even learn to be brave.
Boatwright has seen this firsthand working with students in her role as an instructor and Bee Team lead at Jones Valley Teaching Farm in downtown Birmingham. Now, thanks in part to the Alabama Power Foundation, even more students will learn these buzzworthy lessons as they explore the process of pollination.
The Alabama Power Foundation recently awarded Jones Valley Teaching Farm a grant to add pollination education and honeybee management to its nationally recognized Good School Food curriculum. With the help of local bee experts Wayne Boshell, David Wilson and Nonhlanhla Jones, who will guide the project and train instructors on beehive management, Birmingham City Schools students across the district will get access to bee-related education.
“We have so many kids come in for camp and field trips who are terrified of the bees, and then they’ll leave really excited about them,” Boatwright said. “They understand the importance of bees and other flying insects, and they’ve got more respect for them.”
Jones Valley Teaching Farm will use funds from the Alabama Power Foundation for bee curriculum, bee management equipment, teaching supplies, observation equipment and the expansion of hives to additional Birmingham City Schools.
Bee instruction will be piloted using the six hives on the downtown farm campus with Phillips Academy students and students in Farm Club, the JVTF after-school program. With a successful pilot experience, the farm plans to add beehives to Woodlawn High School Farm and Putnam Middle School Farm with the intention of adding beehives to each school teaching farm.
The secret life of bees
Did you know that the first queen bee that hatches in a colony will sting to death all the other potential queens to maintain her throne? That’s just one of the many jaw-dropping facts kids learn about the secret life of bees at the Jones Valley Teaching Farm.
“I sprinkle in facts like that and kids are like, ‘Oh my God!’ but they’ve locked in,” Boatwright said. “And then they love to go share those little facts with their friends.”
Through bee education, Boatwright not only gets kids excited about learning but also enhances their respect for nature.
“If we don’t have bees, and we don’t have our pollinators, then we don’t have anything,” she said. “I think with our education getting more technology-based, which is not necessarily a bad thing, there’s a little less exposure outside. Sometimes I’ll watch kids play, and it’s like watching a Sims (video game character) that got all of its events canceled – it just kind of stands there. If it’s not something you do a lot, especially in a city where we don’t have as much green space, then you feel like these things are not for you. But if we can give them exposure and give them touch points, they feel a little more ownership and a little braver.”
Good School Food education
Jones Valley Teaching Farm’s Good School Food curriculum is a hands-on food education framework that connects students to food, farming and the culinary arts through standards-based, cross-curricular lessons during the school day, with each lesson and field trip aligning with the Alabama Course of Study.
Boatwright, who was a third-grade teacher for eight years, knows that farming, as well as managing honeybees, can teach children about a lot more than food.
“I can sneak in English or science or social studies,” she said. “They want to come to the farm, and they want to do things, and it’s exciting.”
To prepare for her role as Bee Team lead at the farm, Boatwright received training from the Alabama Beekeepers Association. She believes that food-based education also helps children feel better connected to others and to the land.
“We’re very connected online, and that can be a really great thing, but analog connection gets lost,” she said. “Understanding where our food comes from and what happens if those supply chains break down – I think that builds up that connection.”
Jones Valley Teaching Farm’s Honeybee Program provides students with an A-plus bee education. (contributed)
Boatwright believes that curricula like the Good School Food program can empower students as well and give them a sense of ownership about food and caring for the Earth.
“And that ownership is really important,” she said. “In places where we have food apartheid, where it’s been strategic to keep people away from access to fresh food, feeling like you might be able to have some kind of control and provide for yourself can be really empowering. When you’re a kid, you don’t have a lot of control, so if they feel like they can do something, even as small as grow a flower, that feels good.”
The Bee Team at Jones Valley Teaching Farm hopes to eventually add beehives to each school teaching farm. The farm works with several Birmingham City Schools, including Phillips Academy, Woodlawn High School, Putnam Middle School, C.W. Hayes K-8 School, Avondale Elementary School, Henry J. Oliver Elementary School, Norwood Elementary School and Glen Iris Elementary School.
Learn more about Jones Valley Teaching Farm and its Good School Food curriculum at Home – Jones Valley Teaching Farm. Learn more about the Alabama Power Foundation and its grant programs at powerfgood.com.
