How does your garden grow-in the winter

Not too many people in St. Louis will ask how your garden is doing in the winter. But, kids in the YES-2-Tech program do.

That's because they actually have a garden growing in a geodesic dome greenhouse they built at the corner of Kingshighway and Manchester in St. Louis.

The YES in their title stands for Youth Exploring Science. It's a program sponsored by the St. Louis Science Center to acquaint urban kids with a variety of scientific subjects.

The geodesic dome and gardening project introduces them to computers, structures, plants, weather and technology.

Fourteen-year-old KiOntey Turner said she's particularly interested on building things. The Gateway Institute of Technology sophomore said, "Before I helped build a geodesic dome, I hadn't ever built anything."

She added, "I even learned how to use an electric drill."

Sixteen-year-old LaVelle Clark said he likes the idea of building structures and also learning about plants. "I want to be a

construction worker when I get older," the Roosevelt High School sophomore said.

Kids in the YES-2 program come from throughout the St. Louis metro area. Many of them learned about the activity from family and friends while in middle school.

For instance, 16-year-old Natasha Rogers of Webster Groves is following two older sisters in the program. She said her sisters enjoyed the activity and "I wanted to be in the program too."

This year's dome garden program started last summer when the kids planned, designed and built their first geodesic dome. The first one was from a pre-cut "kit." Then, this fall, the kids also designed and built from scratch a smaller dome.

With both domes, the kids started the construction process with team-building meetings. These taught them how to work together on a single project.

Fifteen-year-old Bryan Owens lives in Castle Point in north St. Louis County. He said the smaller dome project started when the

group was divided into four teams. After each team made its own design, the whole group got together for one overall design.

The North County Tech sophomore said the final design had ideas from all four teams.

A couple problems came up. For one, the first choice for fasteners to hold the triangular panels for the homemade geodesic dome weren't strong enough.

LaVelle Clark said they were testing various fasteners when the violent storms came last July. "We found those fasteners weren't strong enough," he said. The kids switched to a stronger metal fastener.

Another consideration was what sort of plastic to use to cover the dome structure.

Natasha Rogers said the plastic had to be thick enough to keep hail from breaking it. But, it also had to be light enough to let in enough sunlight so the plants could grow.

After the bigger dome was built, the kids had to outfit the inside to allow them to plant their garden. The original dirt on the dome location contained too much clay for a good garden. They settled on a raised-bed garden with dirt that was mostly compost material.

They also needed to use plant varieties that thrive in cool temperatures. The winter temperatures in the dome stay above freezing but are far from those of summer and fall.

The temperature inside the dome stays above freezing because of residual heat in the water in an 800-gallon tank and ground heat circulated by a solar-powered fan.

After researching plant varieties, they decided on cool-weather vegetables such as collard greens, broccoli and garlic.

They planted seeds in October and transplanted seedlings to the dome in mid-November.

The kids still need to prepare the soil inside their homemade dome. They don't have any temperature-modifying equipment in the smaller dome so that garden won't be planted until the spring.

Another part of the science of the dome garden is a study of weather. Now, the YES-2 website (www.yes2tech.com) includes a daily report from the local weather station atop the Taylor Community Science Resource Center.

The Taylor building is their YES-2 meeting place. (The website also includes more program information if you might be interested in applying.)

Natasha Rogers said the YES-2 program is making her rethink her career plans. Originally, she wanted to be a fashion designer. Now she's thinking of a science career.

"But, even if I go into fashion design, my work here with computers will help. Most fashion design work is done on computers now," she said.