3 months ago
Students at McKinley High School take what they learn in their Horticulture class into the great outdoors.
"Outside of Cornell University it's really a rare occasion to see a school of this magnitude concentrate on Horticulture," said Horticulture teacher Ron Kallea.
With three full-production greenhouses, McKinley High is one of the only schools in the state to offer Horticulture as a four year program.
"It's really interesting. You get to learn and it's hands on. So it's really nice to do something for the school for the community," said Horticulture Senior Svetlana Gutsu.
100 students are in charge of maintaining and managing the three greenhouses.
"We pretty much run this entire, whole downstairs right here," said Horticulture junior Alison Hymers.
"Everything's just calm in here. It's like our second home in a way. You want to take care of your home," she added.
"The coolest thing that I've seen grow we have banana trees in the greenhouse and they're so awesome," said Gutsu.
The program is sponsored by the Future Farmers of America. As part of the curriculum, subject topics covered are landscape design, plant science and marketing.
"They look at this as their greenhouse. Their job. They come here they work, they sweep up, they plant, they pot they do a lot of the work that frankly many people aren't interested in doing," said Kallea.
Since the Horticulture Department is self-funded, students sell flowers and arrangements. The plants in McKinley's greenhouses are like any you'd find in any nursery. Their plant sales are open to the public and soon they'll be selling pointsettas and Christmas wreaths.
"We have to raise money. We have to think, we have to make different type of things we could sell, it's a lot of mental work too," said Gutsu.
