“Did you know...,” says Gerson, a fifth grader guiding my tour of the new garden at the International School in Pawtucket. “Did you know that when worms use the bathroom, they make the soil better?” My three young guides, all boys, look me squarely in the eye and nod earnestly, as if to say, “We’re not making this stuff up. It’s a scientific fact.”

“Ooooo!” says Duwan, “do you want to see a praying mantis? It’s really hard to see because it’s camouflaged.” All four of us stand around and peer into the flower bed where they’d last seen it, and after several long moments, young Donald yips that he’s found it. Careful not to touch or scare it, he puts one foot into the bed so he can get closer to point out the impressive six-inch insect. Quietly, he adds, “I’ve never seen one before now. It’s so cool.”

The boys enthuse about the bees that “suck the juice out of the flowers.” And they explain that the reason there is both red and green salsa is because tomatoes come in red and green — who knew? The third graders planted a salsa garden which includes green tomatillos for salsa verde, whose fruits grow inside amusing paper-lantern-like sleeves. Also, the boys find the mint fun and smash the leaves of several herbs so I can breathe in the smells.

“Actually,” says Duwan, “the best thing about this garden is that we grow things you can eat.” This gets a vigorous nod from the other boys.

The garden is connecting them to the natural world.

On a splendid recent September day, the school hosted an outdoor luncheon to thank the many companies and individuals who donated their time and materials to make this outdoor classroom possible. Representatives from Seven Arrows Nursery, Lowe’s, Whole Foods and the South Side Community Land Trust lunched on grilled pizzas, smothered in herbs and vegetables harvested directly from the nearby plants. Steel Yard artists showed designs derived from the kids’ drawings, for metal sculptures that the group has volunteered to build. The arch for the entryway, some fencing for the front to ward off snow plows, and a big bench will give the garden structure, and what gardeners call “winter interest,” which is to say inorganic shapes that come alive with a little snow. So kids and grown-ups alike were in high spirits celebrating the little piece of land they’re making productive, pretty and academically useful.

The story actually began four years ago when the son of landscape architect Kate Lacouture began attending International School. The building had been a factory in its previous life, so from the outside it’s even boxier and more institutional than most public schools. The front begged for plants, so Lacouture approached the principal, Julie Nora, and they began working out the logistics.

They found, for example, Kurt Van Dexter, who runs the Children’s Garden Network ( www.childrensgardennetwork.org). Dexter’s goal is to have a garden at every school, and he had some grant money to help International — and six other Rhode Island schools — get started. He said, “I don’t design gardens for schools. I teach students how to do it. Gardens can really teach art, math, science, and make the school look better.” He cautions that school gardens don’t work unless they’re integral to the school’s program. Otherwise a parent or a teacher could start a lovely project, but then move on, leaving the garden to languish. Be clear what you want the garden for, because that will determine how it will be kept up.

Lacouture says, “I wanted to grow food because the kids get so excited about it. I wanted to connect what some of the kids know about food to the ingredients themselves.” The first graders plant and tend a popcorn garden. Another grade grows cilantro, peppers and tomatoes for salsa. The third grade grows potatoes for French fries or potato salad. The fifth graders’ pizza garden contributed to the festivities. One day the apple tree will bear fruit for everyone.

The school got a donation of camp stools so kids could sit outside for class.

Last spring the kindergarten planted lettuce, which comes up fast. Many kids don’t like greens, but when they harvested and ate their own spring salad, only a couple of students had any lettuce still left on their plates.

As Nora says, “When it’s your tomatoes, your lettuce, you eat it.” So the kids are happily experimenting with eating unfamiliar foods, including dreaded vegetables.

Now the front of the school is charming. As the kids come to school, they can check out the changes that take place daily in their own labor of love.

These kids are getting really cool connections to the natural world that their circumstances don’t easily offer. Sixty-three percent of International’s students are eligible for subsidized lunch (a poverty indicator). So a garden classroom gives city-bound kids a chance to watch a garden’s life cycle and its microecology, as well as providing them with the pleasure of chowing down on its fruits. These pleasant experiences give concrete reality to some of the scientific abstractions they used to learn only in a classroom.

Besides, every kid should learn how to tend and care for something — a garden, a pet, a community project. Our throw-away, on-the-go culture disdains the important, satisfying work of tending and caring for the places where we live and work. Teaching kids to garden is a step in a more responsible, certainly prettier direction.

Julia Steiny, a former member of the Providence School Board, consults for government agencies and schools; she is co-director of Information Works!, Rhode Island’s school-accountability project. She can be reached at juliasteiny@cox.net , or c/o EdWatch, The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902.