Michele Burnette and Wendy Matheny, with the Coquille Tribe, look over the new greenhouse built with funds donated to the school by the Coquille Tribal Fund, as several Millicoma Intermediate School students work on plant projects. The new greenhouse was built behind the school beside several student garden plots. World Photo by Lou Sennick

When Dan Polk arrived at Millicoma Intermediate School four years ago, his classroom looked out on a barren stretch of green.

“This was just a grassy, weedy field,” the fifth-grade teacher said recently. “It wouldn't even grow weeds very well.”

Along with cultivating young minds, Polk took it upon himself to develop the land as a way to augment his class curriculum. So it was not long before apple and plum trees took root. Planter boxes, filled with potatoes, onions and carrots, replaced the unwieldy vegetation.

And last month, an 8-foot-by-14-foot greenhouse materialized, offering the promise of continued classroom experiments well into the rainy season.

“(Dan) does such unique things and it gets kids invested,” said Millicoma Principal Nancy Tedder. “It's not just a garden or orchard. He does science with them, he does math with them. (The students) write about what they see and draw the plants. Instead of learning about things with books and pencils, it comes to life for them.”

Polk said he has taught his students about botany, plant growth and photosynthesis thanks to the garden, all fifth-grade assessment topics. They also write journal entries when they visit the garden, offering opportunities to practice grammar and sentence structure.

“Everything we do we can match up to a state benchmark,” Polk said. “It is also teaching about self-sufficiency and a culture of physical work, something that seems to be lacking in the younger generation.”

Like everything that is grown on the plot of land behind Millicoma, the greenhouse was made possible by the efforts of many.

Monetary assistance was provided by the Coquille Tribal Fund, which approved a grant of $3,610.89 for the project.

“It's hard to pass up schools, especially if they send little kids (to ask for funding),” said Michele Burnette, who serves as the chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of the Coquille Tribe Community Fund.

Polk then proceeded to the Coos Grange, which provided a greenhouse kit at a discount. Rather than doing the work himself, Polk was able to find parents who were more than happy to offer assistance.

One of those was Jim Woods, whose son, Matthew, is a student of Polk's. An emergency room doctor with a contractor's background, Woods spent one of his days off helping put down a concrete foundation for the greenhouse.

“This project is an example of a real benefit to the kids,” Woods said. “There is a whole lot of interest in this.”

Once the platform was prepared, Scott Christoferson, owner of Christoferson Construction of Bandon, offered the services of his construction crew to assemble the greenhouse.

Although Christoferson's daughter, Carlee, is not in Polk's class, she, like everyone in the school, has an open invitation to use the facility.

“(The garden) has really evolved into a schoolwide showcase project,” Tedder said. “Dan has opened it to any teacher in the school who would like to grow some seeds or use it for their class somehow.”

A “looping” instructor, Polk teaches a class of fifth-graders one year and then continues to teach the same students for sixth grade. His garden curriculum has proved especially successful under the format.

“It really ties in with the garden because some things grow over the summer,” he noted. “So my sixth-grade students can harvest potatoes in the fall that they planted as fifth graders in the spring.

“By having them for two years, I can get them really engaged in horticulture.”

On a recent sunny afternoon, Polk's class spent an hour working in the garden. Some grabbed tools to loosen up soil, while others huddled around the planter boxes, practically sticking their noses in the dirt so as to take in every last detail of their study.

Spinach, cucumbers, squash, onions, cabbage, lettuce, cilantro, basil and tomatoes were among the plants quietly germinating in the 90-degree heat of the greenhouse. Most plants had barely poked out of the soil, but that didn't seem to matter to the students.

Shelby Gallo, 10, said she likes learning in the garden more than in the classroom.

“It's really fun. We get to water all the plants, dig up flower beds and I got to plant basil and peppers,” she said.

Earlier in the year, she and her classmates also got to eat some of the lettuce and spinach they had grown.

Polk said he hopes the greenhouse will allow his students to explore even more areas of study.

“Since we can grow more plants now, it would be great if we could do a plant sale and then you teach the children about small business,” he said.

Polk said he tries to incorporate the garden into his lesson plans about once a week, though if it were up to his students, they would probably be outside every day.

“They always want to come out here, but they have more to do than grow Mr. Polk's vegetables,” he said.