A raised-bed garden project outside at Gowanda Middle School is causing pride to blossom on and off campus.
The agricultural project is the result of a brainstorm between a few educators looking for a way to create a collaborative project to give students a hands-on opportunity in understanding how food is grown and where it comes from.
Renee Seneca, the Seneca language teacher at the middle school, wanted to tie an actual garden into her curriculum when discussing the cultural significance of the Three Sisters – corn, beans, and squash – with students. And Michael O’Rourke, who teaches Health and Nutrition at GMS, also wanted to use the garden as a teaching tool when instructing his classes about healthy food choices.
The pair met with Kathy Degenfelder, GMS librarian, who has extensive experience in agriculture, and together the trio developed a plan. With help from the business office and grounds & maintenance, as well as students from both teachers’ classes, the first phase of the project was put into place this past spring.
Despite a brutally hot summer, the garden thrived thanks to a dedicated tag team of daily watering. Ms. Seneca proposed entering some of the vegetables in the Seneca Nation Fall Festival Agricultural Showcase – and the garden reaped four ribbons over the weekend of September 12-14, 2025.
• 1st place for Corn
• 1st place for Strawberries
• 2nd place for Peppers
• 3rd place for Tomatoes
The team plans to continue and expand the project. They hope to create an outdoor classroom in the near future, additional growing beds that can be tended and used by various classes, as well as indoor grow towers that can be used within the GMS community.
The goal is to create additional student-driven, project-based learning opportunities for students to foster cross-curricular collaborations.
Teach Agriculture Day was Thursday, September 18, 2025.
