The following options are offered in the Department of Horticulture curriculum:

1. Horticultural Food Crop Production and Management Option — 12 credits (See suggested 4-year plan)
2. Ornamental Plant Production and Garden Center and Management Option — 12 credits (See suggested 4-year plan)
3. Landscape Design, Installation, and Management Option — 12 credits (See suggested 4-year plan)
4. Public Garden Option — 12 credits (See suggested 4-year plan)
5. Science Option — 12 credits (See suggested 4-year plan)
6. Turfgrass Management Option — 12 credits (See suggested 4-year plan)

For a complete of curriculum requirements: Horticulture Group Requirements 2012-2013 (PDF)

Department of Horticulture students participate in university-wide academic programs including the Honors Program, Undergraduate Research Assistant program and Women in Science and Engineering program. These programs are directed toward students demonstrating high grade point averages and provide unique opportunities for independent study and research.

EARTH - Education And Resiliency Through Horticulture

Program assistant, Kevin Duerfeldt taking

interns to the beach during their first week

on island

(Left to right) Linley Davidson, Jennifer Bousselot, Sarah Haynes, and
Karie Verba at the Ridge to Reef Farm on St. Croix

 

 

Trunk Bay St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands

 

 

Vegetable garden using raised table

 

Terraced garden planted with

native and culturally significant

plants

Melissa Irizary trying local cuisine at the
Agriculture Fair

Kellie Walters with an agave plant while hiking

 

School Garden and Service-Learning on St. John U.S. Virgin Islands –2012

by Kevin Duerfeldt and Cynthia Haynes

Since 2010 Iowa State University (ISU) has partnered with Gifft Hill School (GHS) on St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands to provide a school gardening/service-learning program known as the EARTH Program (Education And Resiliency Through Horticulture). The goals of the program are to:

• design, install, and manage attractive landscapes at the school that serve as an outdoor, learning laboratory
• produce healthy locally, grown food and
• integrate horticulture, environmental science, and health and nutrition within the middle school curriculum.

Each semester horticulture students from ISU spend 12 weeks at Gifft Hill School working with 6, 7, and 8th grade students. The ISU students prepare lessons and guide a weekly EARTH lab. They also build and maintain landscaping/gardening projects and work with local experts to learn more about tropical horticulture and plant ecology.

During the fall of 2011 Linley Davidson and Karie Verba were selected as interns.
As her intern project, Linley completed landscape designs for entrances at both the elementary school and high school. These designs combine tropical ornamental and edible plants to create a landscape that is both visually appealing and provides food for youth at GHS. Karie worked with a group of GHS students to research native and culturally significant plants and production techniques used by early settlers of the island. They then planted a newly installed terraced garden with plants like cassava, pigeon peas, false guava, and sorrel. Linley and Karie also attended a permaculture workshop at the Ridge to Reef Farm on St. Croix with EARTH program director (2011), Jennifer Bousselot and program coordinator, Sarah Haynes. At the workshop interns observed sustainable agriculture practices used to produce tropical fruits and vegetables on small Caribbean islands.

Spring 2012 interns included Melissa Irizarry and Kellie Walters. Kellie and Mellissa attended the Agriculture fair on St. Thomas, which featured vendors selling local produce, hand made crafts, and plants. In addition to her teaching activities, Kellie completed a packet of lesson plans and learning objectives to be used when coordinating EARTH labs between grade levels. Melissa created a reference manual of plants, pests, and diseases found in the gardens to help orient future interns.

This past spring program director (2012) Cindy Haynes and Jennifer Bousselot offered Hort 282, Educating Youth Through Horticulture and 494 service learning credits. Through this class nine students went to St. John during spring break where they delivered experiential learning activities to K/1, 4th, and 11th grade students at Gifft Hill School. Students also toured an organic farm that produces micro greens for restaurants, the USDA agriculture experiment station, and hiked to petroglyphs carved by Taino Indians.

Dave Minner spent 6 months on St. John developing partnerships with ISU EARTH students, Gifft Hill faculty and staff, University of the Virgin Island, and the St. John Community.

The partnership of EARTH, St. John Community Foundation, and UVI developed a compost demonstration project at Gifft Hill School using vegetable waste from 6 local Cruz Bay restaurants and wood chips from Asphlund.

Dave Minner and ISU interns Linley Davidson and Karie Verba got a real lesson in the art of terrace building by local islanders as GHS students demonstrate a traditional conucos mound building technique.

Developing Island Partnerships. UVI and ISU Extension Agents Carlos Robles and Dave Minner meet at Joseph Aubain Park on St. Thomas to establish a Paspalum grass baseball field that can be irrigated with salt water (upper left). Dana Robes GHS Board member discusses many natural synergies for partnerships between UVI and Gifft Hill School with UVI Vice-President for Institutional Advancement Dionne Jackson (upper right). Carlos shows vertical gardening techniques that reuse tires and are popular with potatoes and pineapples (lower left). Commissioner Petersen meets with people and plants on the GHS patio garden after addressing Gifft Hill Students on the value of Agriculture in their lives. Left to right ISU intern Kellie Waters, EARTH Coordinator Sarah Haynes, Agriculture Station Manager Raymond Thomas, EARTH Co-director Dave Minner, UVI Extension Agent Carlos Robles, Virgin Island Commissioner Louis Petersen, and ISU intern Melissa Irizarry.