On the upper campus of Alvah Scott Elementary School in Aiea, students are planting tomato and pepper shoots. Some chat excitedly while others concentrate quietly as they place the shoots in a row with a sprinkling of worm-generated compost.

The students are members of the Garden Club, which meets Thursdays and Fridays after school.

"It started out as a form of counseling to give the students another outlet to work in social groups," said Sharon Aldu­eso, the school’s behavioral health specialist and Garden Club adviser. "They learn teamwork, responsibility and how to follow directions. They learn curiosity and ask really great questions. They learn overall life skills."

The students from second to fifth grades are grouped into teams to plant the vegetables in raised beds along a patch of taro that was planted by a fourth-grade social studies class.

Green beans are already growing on teepee-shaped frames along with marigolds and sunflowers. Eventually the students will also plant basil, eggplant, zucchini, kale and nasturtiums, an edible flower.

"I like the dirt," said Koa­kai Bishop, 7, holding up his hands enthusiastically to show the soil on them. "Everyone wants to wear gloves but I don’t."

Koa­kai, who helps his grandmother in her garden, said he enjoys gardening because he’s good at it.

Gracelyn Shinmoto, 7, said simply, "I like growing stuff."

Brennen Panis, 7, says the fun part is getting to eat the food they plant. The students can taste what’s grown in the garden, according to Aldu­eso. That includes poi made from the taro, a pork and green bean dish and, most recently, roasted sunflower seeds.

The garden program started five years ago with water plants placed in a bucket outside of a classroom as a form of counseling, said Aldu­eso, who works with special-needs kids. The plants helped calm students, giving them a place to reflect.

The Garden Club grew from that beginning and with an initial $1,500 investment of school funds. It is now open to all students, and today about 25 are members.

Volunteers from the Air Force, state Department of Agriculture and Boy Scouts, along with Gracelyn’s grandfather, known as Papa Ron, pitch in to help the club. Parents donate many of the gardening materials.

In October 2011 faculty, staff and community volunteers built the raised plant beds — seven 20-by-20-foot plots in all.

Aldueso is using the curriculum provided by the Kokua Hawai‘i Foundation’s ‘Aina in Schools program and continues to apply for grants every year to expand its offerings.

Students take responsibility for care of the garden, including adding buckets of fruit and vegetable peelings from the cafeteria to the compost heap next to the plant beds.

In the fall of 2012, the elementary school completed a Serenity Garden, transforming an old garden in the central part of the campus into a grassy courtyard with a colorful, ceramic mural.

The Serenity Garden — a place where individuals and groups can go when they need a quiet moment or to resolve an issue — has Manila palms and a small rock sculpture topped with bromeliads. The school hopes to install two concrete benches there.

Through gardening, students learn about the role of insects, try out various forms of composting and aquaponics, sharpen their observational skills and practice data collection, for example, by counting the number of seeds each sunflower produces.

Next, the students will be building a Native Hawaiian Serenity Garden using native plants and learning about pollinators such as bees and butterflies.

Aldueso said the gardens also will be used to teach more lessons in math, science, health and culture.

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