“The students who participate in this program get to see, feel and experience botany and horticulture—for example, nurturing seeds to fruit-bearing plants and witnessing the growth of herbs, flowers and vegetables,” says McConner, an environmental science teacher and member of the Chicago Teachers Union.

He and biology teacher Lori Parker have developed an interdisciplinary program that has helped make the Living Lab a hands-on learning experience in both environmental science and biology.

McConner hopes the project also teaches students ways in which they can take responsibility for the foods they eat and the nutrition they are getting.

Because one person’s trash can be considered another person’s treasure, the Living Lab often takes in donated house plants that are dying. The students analyze the soil for composition and moisture content. They also determine the appropriate growing conditions for the ailing plants. Revitalized plants are often returned to their owners.

McConner would like to see the Living Lab/Greenhouse and Garden project flourish just as the plants in his facility do. “I’d like to see it at different schools throughout Chicagoland,” he says.

The Living Lab has partnered with After School Matters, a community-based after-school enrichment program designed to reinforce in-school curriculum and provide apprenticeship opportunities for students.

In her civilian life as a nationally certified school nurse, Adloff already has a big job with the Cleveland Public Schools, where she’s been since 1989. Her duties include working with young adults, including English language learners, at the Max Hayes Vocational School. At the Ben Franklin School, she serves nearly 800 preschoolers through eighth-graders, including a fair number of special education students.

Adloff tenaciously advocates for the children under her care, her colleagues say, writing individual healthcare plans and 504 plans to ensure their safety in school.

With more and more medically fragile children now being mainstreamed, she says, “I found myself in the role of ensuring that up-to-date care plans, treatments and staff instruction were in place.”

When she got her orders, Adloff prepared her school clinics for a replacement nurse.

“School nursing is not a ‘Band-Aid’ profession,” she says, explaining that nurses need an array of skills, including self-assurance, to walk the line between educational and medical goals for their students. “I find my profession in the schools rewarding and challenging, and would never want to have picked another area of nursing.”

From her unit’s combat support hospital in Brooklyn, Ohio, Adloff was transferred for deployment to a hospital in Taunton, Mass. An Army reservist since 1991, she has three married children and three grandchildren, the youngest of whom will be walking and talking before she gets home, making her departure more difficult.

“At age 57, this is certainly a new adventure in my life,” Adloff says, adding that she hopes to “make a difference for the people I will serve.”