Come spring the students of Sunset Elementary School  will be admiring the product of their hard work that began in August.

The Cody school is home to a geodesic dome greenhouse administrated by the University of Wyoming Extension and funded by a block grant from the USDA.

The UWYO Extension contacted Deb White of Change Attitudes Now (CAN), a program focused on positive choices for youth, who approached Jez Krubeck, the school’s computer science and Classroom 2 Careers teacher, and asked if he would be interested in a dome. 

Krubeck has always firmly believed that involving students in growing food will get them interested in eating it, he said. When he was a third grade teacher he created a hydroponics system with students and over the years had built a greenhouse using old pallets and other materials. 

“So when this opportunity came up, of course, I jumped at it,” Krubeck said. “It’s everything I wanted to do, and everything’s here all the way down to the plumbing.”

The one catch: The existing greenhouse had to be torn down, and the school year was about to start.

Krubeck’s fourth and fifth grade students took to the task and in late September they constructed the dome with the help of the high school woodshop class, who did the work that required power tools.

“It took 19 hours from start to finish, which I’m proud to say is the record. This is the 29th one they had built, and this was the fastest they ever had one go up including all the dirt,” Krubeck said.

It was a first for the program to have a dome built with the garden bed already established. The water was shut off the day after the dome was created, so in the spring students will plant their crops with the help of CAN, which is helping add a leadership and business portion to the project.

As the students plant, the goal is to have an after-school farmers’ market where students can sell their produce or things like bags of salsa made with the items grown in the dome. 

When the fourth grade students come back next year they’ll harvest the produce for their farmers market and come up with a marketing plan. Funds will then go back into materials for things like 3D printer filament, wood, seeds and fertilizer, creating a self-sufficient program. 

For his class, Krubeck is focusing on building his students’ problem solving skills through planting crops and collaboration.

He said students will see how “in a relatively small space, you can create a garden that can feed your family.”

He’s also able to incorporate computer science into the project through creating pieces and creating video presentations using drones.

“They’re wanting to create a video, and they’re going to be flying the drones around and into the greenhouse to create those different views, and do a promotional video for their farmers’ market,” Krubeck said.