On a mid-February afternoon, Wilbur Purdue steps inside a hoop house and proudly reveals the fruits of his students’ labor.

Well, to be more precise, what he’s showing are vegetables ­— tidy rows of greens, from lettuce to mustards to arugula.

They are varieties students from Coupeville Middle School selected for their ability to withstand winter temperatures under proper care. Students placed floating row cover over them for added protection on the chilliest days.

Purdue plucks a piece of mustard green known as Ruby Streaks.

“This is one the kids really like,” he said. “If you want to try one, you can. It’s got a little spice to it.”

Finding crops that grow well on Ebey’s Prairie and learning how to care for them is one component of the sustainability course introduced at Coupeville Middle School this school year.

The class is a hands-on, elective course for seventh- and eighth-graders taught by Purdue, a science teacher who also farms on the prairie using many of the same practices.

Although sustainable agriculture is a large part of the class, it also teaches students about sustainable energy practices.

In the first semester, students built windmills made out of PVC and experimented with blade shape and design in how it could affect electrical output.

The course is evolving with its scope stretching about as wide as Purdue’s imagination.

Already there are plans to incorporate green building practices into class discussion.

In the future, Purdue would like to expand the program to include work with solar power, controlling water runoff, even helping propagate Garry oak trees for the City of Oak Harbor and working with other local programs in Coupeville and in Island County.

The focus so far has been researching proper seed varieties for the prairie’s microclimate and experimenting with raising those crops on land behind the school that the class is restoring.

The hope is that within a few years, a larger scale operation will materialize to give high school students opportunities to learn career-tech skills.

The school has a sizable greenhouse it shares with the Coupeville Garden Club.

“I thought it would be interesting to work with plants to figure out how I could be self-sustainable and what kinds of foods we could grow out here,” said eighth-grader Chris Battaglia, who is taking the class this semester.

The class is an educational component to the Farm to School program that the Coupeville School District is working to incorporate.

The program involves bringing more locally produced food to schools and providing complementary educational activities that focus on food, farming and nutrition.

A Coupeville Farm to School group has been formed made up of area farmers, parents and public health officials. The group, which received a grant to fund a partial staff person to coordinate meetings and research, is working to bring the program to the Coupeville schools.

In addition to the educational component, the program calls a partnership with local farmers to provide  healthier, locally grown foods to supplement school lunches.

So far, that hasn’t happened yet in Coupeville, though the school district’s food contractor, Chartwells, has expressed a willingness to work within the parameters of the Farm to School program.

“It makes more sense than having a whole bunch of pre-made frozen things in our lunches,” Battaglia said.

In the meantime, the students will continue to get their hands dirty. They’ve learned to test soil, compost and experiment with different gardening techniques. They  surveyed the student body on the sort of fruits and vegetables they like and how they like them prepared.

All this is done under the tutelage of Purdue, a fifth-generation farmer who runs the 20-acre Prairie Bottom Farm with wife Julieanna.

“He’s pretty cool,” seventh-grader Gavin Knoblich said. “He’d be even cooler if he let me hunt on his property, though.”

Purdue, 37, enjoys the life of teaching and farming and practicing what he preaches.

His farm is built on sustainable practices.

“It’s beautiful when it all ties together, absolutely,” Purdue said. “I can’t think of a better sense of harmony than bringing in all these things that you love and getting to teach them. That makes it worthwhile.”