The preschoolers at the URI Child Development Center learned about hydroponics recently thanks to a visit and generous donation from Dr. Soni Pradhanang, from URI’s College of the Environment and Life Sciences.

The children planted lettuce seeds and hope to harvest lettuce for school snacks in the fall. Hands-on, project-based learning experiences, such as gardening, support young children’s growing understanding of the world around them. This particular project will help children to understand where their food comes from, develop an awareness of different growing techniques, and prepare and sample healthy snacks.

The Child Development Centers, part of the College of Health Sciences, offer high quality, developmentally appropriate early childhood education programs for children ages three to five years. The full-day preschool programs provide high quality programs for pre-primary children, serve as a high quality teacher training facility for URI students, support research in the field of early childhood education, and serve the community as a model of best practice in early care and education through outreach and advocacy.