NASHUA – The Hillsborough County Conservation District presented its 2014 Conservation Teacher of the Year award to Edith Pucci Couchman during its annual meeting on Jan. 8 at Alpine Grove in Hollis.

The HCCD is a nongovernmental organization that partners with citizens and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service to further sustainable practices with respect to natural resources such as forests, water and soil.

Couchman is the art teacher for Infant Jesus and St. Christopher schools. During the summer, she is a part-time art and environmental science teacher for the Beaver Brook Association in Hollis. She has been teaching art and environmental science for more than two decades in New Hampshire and north-central Massachusetts.

Couchman received the award thanks to nominations by her colleagues at Infant Jesus School who have been working with her for four years to create organic, permaculture-inspired gardens and outdoor classrooms. The resultant plantings are next to the school at 3 Crown St.

The gardens contain heritage apple and pear trees, blueberry bushes, strawberry ground covers, and many herbs and perennials that were chosen for their historic or symbolic associations and their usefulness to native wildlife. The main planting site is a National Wildlife Federation certified wildlife habitat.

The students at Infant Jesus School help care for the gardens, learning firsthand about plant life through the seasons and the plants’ close interconnections with other parts of the living and nonliving environment.

At times, the youngsters draw in the gardens and use the area for outdoor explorations, refreshment and reflection. They also harvest the leaves, berries, fruits, ears of corn and seeds for teas, food samples, replanting in spring, and sales to their teachers and classmates.

They tend the compost pile, admire the small butterfly garden, weed, mulch and generally learn about their fellow creatures – animals, plants, fungi and microorganisms – and how these interact. The older students have the option of joining an after-school garden club.

Their endeavors are seen as a form of service learning, because they make the school neighborhood a more pleasant place for residents and passersby, and as installation art in its most contemporary form.

Although the nominating teachers mentioned Couchman’s publications in Green Teacher magazine, a Canadian environmental journal, and that she encourages her students to participate in various poster contests designed to galvanize environmental awareness, Couchman said she’s convinced that the organic children’s gardens at IJS are the most tangible expression of her commitment to conservation education.

She said she regards the gardens as the product of the work, caring and vision of the entire Infant Jesus School community.