[students sing in Spanish] - Angela Fitzgerald: This is not your typical Milwaukee grade school.
And this is not a typical playground.
– Glorimar Melendez: I had seen on social media, other schools that had transformed their playground.
– Angela: At Forest Home Avenue School, fifth-grade teacher Glorimar Melendez led the charge for change.
- I was looking at our playground, which was a big, vast, empty cement space.
Wow, this is so depressing for our kids to come out here at recess and do what, right?
Get hurt.
And now, we have so many beautiful areas for students to play, for students to relax, play basketball.
[students exclaim] I think the students, they love it.
[whistle blows] Soccer, let's go!
The majority of boys, they love soccer.
Sometimes I play with them.
[students chant] For the girls, I like to take out my yoga mats.
And they just like to chill.
I championed the whole playground.
I'm not an expert, right?
I'm more of the passion and the heart and getting things done.
– Angela: Off the playground in her bilingual classroom, Glorimar also has a passion to get things done.
- All right, hocus pocus!
– Students: Everybody focus!
- We have three hydroponic units, and I've been working with Fork Farms, with this partnership since 2018.
And what is hydroponics?
Who can tell me?
Quickly.
– Student: [speaking Spanish] - Very good.
– Angela: Glorimar has brought the outdoors indoors year round.
- I never was a green thumb person before.
I actually never even owned a plant before.
Or even felt confident enough to grow any plants.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.
Okay, people, our first lettuce, hey!
– Angela: Today, she's a farmer growing with hydroponic towers.
- Basil, cucumbers, lettuce.
Let's go.
I am a farmer.
We are doing everything from farm to table, literally.
Right now, we have cucumbers, tomatoes.
They're tiny, but they're delicious, and so are the cucumbers.
They're packed with so much flavor.
We have basil, spinach.
– Angela: Her students are learning how to be farm managers.
- You need to measure first, what?
Eight milliliters here.
[speaking Spanish] I teach them how to check the pH, check our nutrient levels to actually make qualitative observations and be able to make adjustments when needed.
Sometimes, I do have to stay after school and finish it myself because of course, they're only fifth-graders.
They're 11 years old and 10 years old.
Think I have shoes that are older than that, you know?
[laughs] So, it does take a lot of work.
But it's gratifying.
Unit B?
[students respond] - Angela: While gardening, students are using math, science, and language skills along with critical thinking.
- Great job!
– Angela: For Glorimar, the hydroponics gave her a chance to grow crops alongside confidence.
- I had a lot of support, and that support gave me a lot of confidence in growing.
Wow!
This is beautiful.
I get excited and emotional because I never thought that I was gonna be able to do something like this.
Now, I feel excited, confident, and it's pushed me to come up with different initiatives and alternatives for my students to learn, and learning about food because we are what we eat.
- Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and spinach.
– Glorimar: I think, every time we harvest, there can be, like, 25 pounds of produce.
- The one's not good, is it?
– Glorimar: No, it is good.
We'll take out the cucumber or the lettuce right from the machine straight to the table, and we're eating it fresh.
– Angela: And each student has their favorite.
- Tomates.
- Lechuga.
- Tomates.
- Cucumber.
- Lettuce, the tomato, the... basically all of them.
- Oh, man!
[students exclaim] What did you do?
- Sorry!
We're eating it fresh, and it's just so much more delicious.
Mmm, this is really good.
Good job!
- Yay!
My favorite is basil, because we can make pesto, and pesto's my favorite.
[blender whirs] - Glorimar: So if we teach them now that eating healthy is important and this is something that they can do, I'm sure they will continue to make positive, healthy eating choices.
– Angela: Glorimar will tell you her passion is rooted in her culture.
- I think that is the Puerto Rican in me.
I teach with love... And I didn't choose this profession.
God did.
And that, I think that reminds me every day why I'm here.
– Students: Yay!
– Glorimar: It is a lot of extra effort, but it makes me happy to see my kids happy.
[students cheer] - Angela: Whether it's in the classroom or on the playground, Glorimar wants her students to remember the life lessons that grew from this fifth grade experience.
- I want them to be able to feel proud of their background, of where they're coming from, their culture.
For them to be strong and be confident enough to do whatever they want in life.
– Angela: She is planting that seed of hope in our next generation.
- And I think that, to be a teacher, you have to love your students.
If you don't love your students, if you don't love what you're doing, you're not doing anything.
Yeah, that's why I cry and I get excited because I see the change in them.
[drumming] - [sings in Spanish] [students exclaim]
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