Two years after its closure in 2020 due to NDB’s shift to online distance learning, Environmental Science students are beginning to use the school’s greenhouse again.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to online school, NDB science students had the opportunity to spend time in the greenhouse growing plants and learning more about them. The greenhouse is located on NDB’s second floor by the science classrooms. It is filled with pots and hand-painted wooden planters, still decorated by the plant markers with the names of students from 2020 classes. The greenhouse closed in March 2020 when NDB classes went fully virtual and has not been used in classes since.

On Friday, September 30, Block 4 of the Environmental Science course entered the greenhouse during class to set up their group composting experiments. The students, in groups of four or five, had been planning these composting experiments for the past several weeks as part of a larger study of food waste and sustainability. The experiments represent a practical application of what the students have learned about the process of composting and the groups will compete to see which one has produced the most efficient compost setup. Each group set up their compost container and materials and has been performing regular check-ins.

Environmental Science teacher Rebecca Girard hopes to have all groups’ compost completed in the next several months. Once the compost, which acts like a fertilizer to encourage plant growth, is completed, the students will have the opportunity to begin growing whatever plants they wish in the greenhouse.

“I want to grow strawberries,” said junior Cailin Thompson.

Though the Environmental Science students are currently the only students utilizing the newly reopened greenhouse, Girard hopes that future years will see the greenhouse return to the educational resource it once was before the pandemic.