KNOWLEDGE GROWS IN GRADE SCHOOL'S 4TH-ACRE GARDEN; STATE TEACHERS TO LOOK AT CROPS.

Byline: Paul O'Donoghue Staff Writer

Agriculture is only one of the lessons children at Park View School learn as they tend their garden.

The quarter-acre garden, the brainchild of Simi Valley English teacher Denise Grap, has taught the 625 youngsters at the elementary school a variety of lessons.

``The kids have become a lot more proficient in math and understanding volumes - how to weigh things, how to use grant money,'' Grap said. She said they also have learned ``how to speak to members of the community on a business level, how to train others and how to be efficient communicators both in writing and orally.''

The students not only grow fruits, vegetables and herbs in their own school garden and sell them from the school store, but also manage a worm farm that consumes the 6,000 pounds of organic waste produced annually from the cafeteria. They sell the fertilizer produced by the worms.

``Our philosophy is that students really learn when they are learning for an outcome - so that in agriculture they are learning because they want to.''

Grap said the harvest is exciting.

``You'd be amazed how many students have never seen an onion pulled out of the ground,'' Grap said. She said more than one jokingly asks, ``You mean it doesn't come out of a plastic bag from the store?''

The program at Park View is so highly regarded that Grap and Deni Lopez, another teacher involved with the garden, have been chosen to give workshops for 400 other teachers at the 13th annual conference sponsored by the California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom.

The conference, which will start today at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel in Ventura, is the first in Ventura County for the Sacramento-based nonprofit foundation, which provides resource materials as well as seminars for teachers.

County Superintendent of Education Chuck Weis, who will speak at the conference, said 120 of the county's 190 schools have gardens, more than double the number two years ago. He said state officials and he hope for a garden at every school.

The Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation ``has been very helpful to teachers all over the state of California in teaching the core disciplines of language, reading, math and science,'' he said.

Teachers at the conference also will take field trips to farms, packing houses and schools, including Park View. They will have their choice of 20 workshops and 50 round-table discussions.

Workshops will focus on topics ranging from organic farming to the business of agriculture and Web resources for agricultural education.

Agriculture is the county's largest single private industry, employing as many as 20,000 workers and producing crops worth $942 million annually.