On an unseasonably warm February day at Decatur High School, agricultural sciences teacher Dan Tedor’s class roams the expansive greenhouse watering the flowers and also the different varieties of vegetables that will soon be transplanted to the Federal Way Community Gardens.

Tedor said students have started more than 200 varieties of vegetables from tomatoes, to lettuce, to Swiss chard, to Walla Walla sweet onions.

“[The students] will transplant the vegetable starts to the gardens in early March and will show community members how to grow them,” Tedor explained. “Students will teach [senior citizens] how to plant the vegetables and use them in salads. Students will volunteer in the summer to harvest the vegetables and deliver them to the food bank and senior center.”

Tedor said students will receive community service credits to go toward their high school graduation requirements.

The gardens that the vegetable starts will be delivered to earlier next month comprise Enterprise, Nautilus, Green Gables, Camelot and Olympic View elementary schools; Lakota Middle School; and Truman and Thomas Jefferson high schools.

These gardens are under the umbrella of the Federal Way Community Gardens Foundation, a nonprofit organization, founded in August 2008 by Mike and Carol Stanley. The couple was inspired to plant an organic garden at the Federal Way Senior Center that would feed low-income seniors, particularly those at the SHAG housing and those served by the Meals-on-Wheels program. Mike Stanley designed the garden in the spirit of gardens he and his wife saw on their trip to England.

Today, these gardens provide produce for countless needy families, the homeless and seniors.

“The mission of the Federal Way Community Gardens Foundation is to grow, teach and give to the community by building a city of beautiful, productive gardens,” Tedor said. “This matches up with the Decatur High School agriculture sciences program because one of the goals is to produce educated citizens out of our program.

“The students in the program are potentially able to grow their own food and will be able to teach others about it,” Tedor added. “They will be able to determine how plants grow, and how growing locally can be a huge benefit to the community.

”Decatur High School’s agriculture sciences program is unique in that it’s the only program of its kind in Federal Way Public Schools. There are 117 students enrolled in the agricultural sciences program,” Tedor said. “There is a lot of room for growth. Students from grades 9-12 are taking current courses and with the expansion of the program, we’ll have more opportunities for all students.”

Courses offered under the agricultural sciences program comprise horticulture 1, horticulture 2 and agricultural biology. Tedor said a future plan is to offer animal sciences as a course of study.

The agricultural sciences program falls under Federal Way Public Schools’ Career and Technical Education course offerings. It aligns with the Washington state-approved framework and includes leadership components such as FFA, Tedor said.

There are 60 students in Decatur’s FFA organization.

“Decatur FFA recently placed first at the District II First Year Member Career Development event and they qualified for state,” Tedor said.

Taylor Howard, a 17-year-old junior at Decatur, is a student in Tedor’s horticulture 1 class.

“I’ve learned how important agriculture is in everyday life,” Howard said.

She appreciates the education side of agriculture and said that a career in media, marketing or education as it relates to agriculture is appealing to her.