Planting our Garden

For the final capstone to the Eggplants program we planted our outdoor garden! It was such a  success! We're hoping that our garden can be cared for by students and families over the summer in order to grow beautiful, fruit bearing plants. Our garden planting went incredibly successfully!

Outdoor planting plan!

To start, we will go inside and talk to students in the classroom!

INSIDE:

-ask students what they think needs to be done to grow a garden

-then provide them with a semi-detailed outline of what we will be doing today, hopefully to give them a sense of responsibility! There will be MANY tasks to be accomplished and we only have an hour to do it, so if we work together, and work hard, we can plant a beautiful garden!

1. we need to plant our seeds—all seeds are planted differently; some are planted directly into the soil, others in a mound, others transplanted (have to be very careful!)
2. It's very important that we plant seeds correctly! If we plant them too deep, they will die before they reach the sun.
3. Fertilizing seeds and making mounds: we will use compost for this. When students find the spot for their seed, they should first put some compost on their spot. They can push the seed into this soil and can cover the seed with another thin layer of compost.
4. Water! We have buckets of water for watering the plants. If you are ever done/bored, go fill a water bucket!

OUTSIDE

1. After students get general instructions, they will get an item of responsibility: their plant! There are many plants so students will be paired into groups of 2 or so, in order to assure that all plants get planted.
2. Students will be given their seed-packet, and will be asked to read HOW DEEP to plant their seeds, if seeds are planted in a mound or in the soil, and how far apart to plant their seeds.
3. Students will receive their seeds once they can tell one of us this information.
4. Once students have read the packet and have received their seeds, we will head outside.
5. In the garden, there will be strings marking rows of plants and pieces of paper marking where different plants should be planted. Students will be asked to find their spot and to start planting.
6. From here we can walk around and check on students to see how they're doing.

Here is our list of seeds and methods:

PLANT METHOD DEPTH NUMBER per school Dwarf Gray Sugar Pea Push into soil ¼ inch, 2 inches apart 50 Kentucky Wonder Bush Push into the soil 1 inch, 2 inches apart 30 Swiss Chard Push into soil ½ inch, 2 inches apart 50 Carrots Push into soil ¼ inch, ½ inch apart 50 Squash Mound 6-8 seeds 12” diameter hills 12 (2 mounds) Pumpkin Mound 6-8 seeds 12” diameter hills 12 (2 mounds) Basil Push into soil ¼ inch, 6 inches apart Zuchini Mound 6-8 seeds 12” diameter hills 12 (2 mounds) Watermelon Mound 6-8 seeds 12” diameter hills 12 (2 mounds) Eggplant Transplant Careful with roots! ? Heirloom Tomato Transplant Careful with roots! ? (11—2 kids per group except transplants may use some more)

Field Trip

This week, we took the third graders to Thorn Crest Farm in Dundas, MN (http://www.thorncrestfarm.com/). This was a great experience for us and for the students because we got to see firsthand how organic farming is accomplished in a local setting. Needless to say, we were able to bring in many of the topics we have been discussing in the classroom. Thorn Crest is a CSA (community supported agriculture), meaning that community members in the area subscribe to the farm in the springtime and receive a weekly share of the harvest throughout the summer and fall. The produce grown here includes leafy greens, onions, garlic, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, corn, raspberries, and grapes. They also keep chickens for eggs and for eating. A huge thank you goes out to Gary and Maureen Vosejpka for welcoming us to their farm and showing us all of the exciting things that go on there! This fieldtrip was supported in part by the Northfield Healthy Community Initiative, with funding from the Northfield Area United Way, and SAMHSA (grant number SP012242-10).

The washing station, where produce is rinsed

 

Gary showing us one of the many fields at Thorn Crest

 

Planting seeds and onion seedlings

 

 

 The barn: horse and cow

 

Chickens (L and C) and chicken eggs in the barn (R) 

Talking to the ducks

Christina with a chicken!

Climbing the tree in the front yard

 Gary teaching us about planting potatoes (the eye)

We found a toad!

Lesson Plan #4: Tracing the Food, Local Foods

This week we went to St. Dominics to teach about local foods. This same lesson plan will occur next Friday at Greenvale without any edits!


It turns out that teaching about local foods is not nearly as hard as teaching about other subjects, such as the differences between organic foods and conventional foods. Students were very responsive to our lesson, and kept up wonderfully. When we got to the end and asked the harder questions, such as why local might be better than foods that travel a long distance, students immediately jumped to issues of freshness and pollution. We had anticipated that this would be one of the most difficult components of the lesson, and it turned out to be the easiest. The map activity was a little more difficult as it got chaotic for students to follow along, draw and voice their opinions simultaneously. Nonetheless, even in the chaos they continued to pay attention and engage with the questions we asked.

 LESSON PLAN:

Essential Question/s:
How far does our food travel to get to our tables?
What are the problems with having to bring food from so far away?
What options are good for Minnesota?

Objectives:
Students will vocalize possible places in the United States and the World that they think their food comes from.
Students will map out how food travels and where produce typically comes from.
Students will discover that very little of the food we eat is produced locally.
Students will learn key terms: Import, export, local, food miles

Materials, Tools and Resources:

• USA maps for each student to draw on
• Apples from various parts of the country/world
• Name tags for the ski
• Map of the world (powerpoint, smartboard or pull-down).

Today’s Prep Work:
    Look up stats for different foods!
    Look up which foods come from MN!
    make good nametags

Activities:
1. Review last week's lesson: organic and conventional foods.
2. Tell a story about two different foods, the food that is bought locally and food that is transported a great distance
3. Discuss where food comes from, using a map of the world and miles traveled in distance and in time driving. Students will draw where food comes from.
4. Students will compare a number of apples bought from a local grocery store and will learn how to identify where they came from by the labels.

Hook:
What does biodiversity mean? Is biodiversity good for farming? If farmers don’t want to use biodiversity for farming, what other options do they have?

See if students can remember one negative and one positive about both organic and conventional farming (we will help fill in the gaps!)

Procedure:
1. Review last week's lesson: organic and conventional foods. (5 minutes)

Ask: What does biodiversity mean? Is biodiversity good for farming? If farmers don’t want to use biodiversity for farming, what other options do they have?

What two types of farming did we discuss last week? (remind: both have pos, neg)

What type of farming are we doing in our garden?

2. People eat food everyday. Where does food come from? List on board. Usually students will say grocery store, and it is the job of the instructor to lead children to conclude that food actually comes from a farm and then travels to a grocery store. (3 mins)
3. Introduce the subject for today: Talking about where food comes from. Start with an engaging activity: skits! Each skit will  have different characters identified by name tags. One teacher will tell the following stories while characters quietly act out the process described by the narrator. Half the students will be involved in one skit, half in the other (7 minutes, 2 ish for each story).

   

THE LIFE OF AN HEIRLOOM TOMATO PLANT

Once upon a time there was a farmer named Zeb. Zeb loved his land and loved his garden and produced foods that don't pollute nature. He used organic methods, like biodiversity and compost, to grow his crops.

In the spring, Zeb planted a row of tomato seeds in his garden. The tomatoes were right next to broccoli and beans and lived in a diverse garden. Zeb watered the tomato plants and watched them carefully as they grew, removing any weeds that might hurt the tomatos. Zeb nurtured the seeds as they grew into beautiful, healthy fruit-bearing plants!

One day, when the tomatoes turned red, Zeb picked the tomatoes so he could sell them to other people who lived in his town. He took the tomatoes to a farmers market in town that afternooon and his friend, Zonna, who worked at the bank, bought them from him. She took the tomatoes home and turned them into a delicious salsa!!

THE JOURNEY OF A BANANA

Once upon a time there was a farmer named Manuela. Manuela lived in Ecuador.  Manuela loved her land and loved her garden and produced foods that don't pollute nature. She used organic methods, like biodiversity and compost, to grow her crops.

Manuela owned a large banana orchard, full of tall and beautiful banana trees. In the spring, small bananas would start to grow from the banana trees in bunches. The bananas started small and very green bananas. As the spring progressed, they got bigger and bigger, but they still remained green. Manuela nurtured the trees as they grew the beautiful bananas.

One day, when the bananas were still green, Manuela picked the bananas from the tree. They weren’t ripe yet, but she knew they had a long journey ahead of them. If she picked the bananas when they were yellow, they would arrive brown at their destination. She packed the bananas into crates full of ethylene gas which would preserve them, and loaded them onto a truck.

The truck went to the United States, a trip that took a whole week! When the bananas arrived at a grocery store in Minnesota  they were still green because of the gas they were stored in. Eventually they turned yellow and the grocery store clerk put them on sale. Eventually, Mark went to the store and bought yellow bananas. He took the bananas home and ate them with his cereal.

4. Map activity: Students have individual maps and coloring tools and instructor can use the smartboard to draw on top of a map of the US.  (10)

• First, Identify Minnesota. Maybe even identify some other critical states (California, Washington, Georgia, etc.).
• Present a fruit/vegetable. Ask students where they think this crop is grown. After some guessing by the students, reveal the real answer in location. Draw the fruit on the map where it lands and tell the students not only the food miles but also the number of hours it would take to drive this far.

6. Break students into small groups. We’re visiting a local farm next week--why might local farms be better. Significant that food travels different distances: fresher, less pollution.
7. Present apples to each group and ask students to see if they can identify where each apple came from. Instructors will split between the groups and will help students learn how to identify where they came from by the sticker.

Assessment:
Students will draw a personal map, noting where each food comes from on the map.
Students will be able to identify where produce came from

Closing:
What are we doing next??? A field trip to a local farm!!

Filler Activities:
If time is left, students will remain in small groups to discuss what they’ve learned that day and their own personal experiences which relate to the activities of the day.

Lesson Plan Citations:

www.bonniecabbageprogram.com

Lesson Plan #3: Why Organic?

This week we tried to teach the kids about different farming methods, mostly the differences between organic farming and conventional farming. This week was probably our least successful lesson so far. First of all, it was severe weather awareness week, and we coincidentally had tornado drills during both classes. That was exciting! But we also discovered that some of the concepts went over their heads so to speak. Even as I was preparing the lesson, I was finding that it was very difficult to come up with simple activities to explain the many complexities in the organic/conventional debate in only 45 minutes. The food labels activity went ok, but they had a hard time focusing. They were able to pull some things out of the movie clips, but they were probably a little too brief and had a lot of things in them that maybe required some previous knowledge. We also found that, although having a sheet for them to write stuff down on did help them stay focused and process some of the information a little more, writing is still difficult for the third grade level when that is not the sole focus of the activity. Even so, I think we were able to get them to understand that there are positives and negatives to both kinds of farming.


Essential Question/s:
How do conventional and organic farming methods measure up? 

Objectives:
Students will be able to:

• define and explain what makes farming “organic farming” vs. “conventional farming”
• express their opinion and debate with other students which they think is better and back up their opinion
• connect the concept of “organic farming” to our garden

Materials, Tools and Resources:

• food labels for organic and non-organic products
• pictures of organic vs conventional food items
• video clips of interviews with farmersActivities:
• Defining organic and conventional farming (5 min)
• Perspectives stations (2 x 7 minutes each)
• Debate/discussion (6 minutes)
• Drawing (5 minutes)

Hook/intro: (5)

• What did we talk about last week? see if they can define biodiversity
• Remind them of the game last week- what did we do to solve the problem of the bugs killing all the plants (answer: diversify). What else do farmers do a lot to get rid of bugs that are killing their plants? (answer: spray pesticides). These are two ways that farmers use to take care of their crops.
• Today we are going to learn more about two different methods, or ways, that farmers go about taking care of their plants and getting them to grow big and strong. Write the words “organic farming” and “conventional farming” on the board and then list the characteristics of each (organic: no chemicals, biodiversity, compost. conventional: pesticides, heribicides, fertilizer, monoculture). Leave on the board so they can refer back to it.

Procedure:

• Learning perspectives: Split into two stations: producer and consumer (7 minutes)
• Give each student a folded-in-half piece of paper that has a blank space at the top and the bottom half split into “organic” and “conventional” with “positives” and “negatives” under each. For the last minute of each station, have the kids write down some ideas in each of the sections on their sheets of paper telling them that they will need this information in order to back up their ideas in the debate.
• Consumers: Bring in several food labels (they can be real or made up, but best if real, good ones: bread, peanuts). Make sure some are organic and the others are not, but do not tell them which is which. Also hide the price.
• Have students read out loud the ingredients of the food and work in partners to circle/highlight which ones they do not know. Talk about the ones they don’t know- what do they think they are for? Why are there more ingredients in one than the other? guessing game: can they tell which one is organic?  Take home message: 1) non- organic food often has a lot of ingredients that we don’t know, and are usually not as healthy (e.g. peanut butter has sugar and molasses)
• guessing game: can they guess the price of each item? Talk about how some people can’t pay a lot of money for food. Take home message: 2) organic food is often more expensive, but not always!
• Look at the pictures of the bananas. Discuss what the differences are, and speculate why. Can they tell which is organic and which is not? Which one is more expensive? Which one might taste better? Take home message: 3) organic produce often has blemishes, whereas conventional looks perfect.
• take home messages and some others to talk about if there is time: 1) organic food is often more expensive, but not always! 2) Organic can often be bought in bulk and then is probably less expensive 3) non- organic food often has a lot of ingredients that we don’t know, and are usually not as healthy (peanut butter has sugar and molasses) 4) Preservatives often give non-organic food longer shelf time 5) organic produce often has blemishes, whereas conventional looks perfect 6) What might be in the food that isn’t in the ingredients list? (pesticide left overs)
• Producers: play several clips with interviews of farmers (7 minutes)
• 1st clip: Conventional farmer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRwg05M83Gk, but uses as little as possible
• why do farmers use fertilizers and pesticides to begin with? What are their advantages? Why does this farmer still use them? (plants grow faster, better, bigger, better looking, cheaper, hard on a large scale)
• why does he try to use as little chemicals as possible? (worker health and safety are in danger with harsh chemicals)
• 2nd clip: Nourish 8:45-9:40
• Why does the person being interviewed say using chemicals like pesticides and fertilizers is bad for the environment? (grow pests along with crop, runoff of chemicals- dead zone)
• What alternatives could you use instead of chemicals and fertilizers (have them think back to the game last week- biodiversity, the three sisters, then ask if they know what compost is)

• Debate- maybe less of a debate but ask a question and have them state their opinion and say why. (6-10 minutes)
• Talk about what a good debate is (respecting other people’s opinions, backing up your opinions with evidence)
• Ask the students the following questions. Ask students to raise their hands and the moderator will alternate calling on students.
• If your parents gave you money to go to the grocery store, would you buy an organic product or a non-organic product?
• If you were a farmer, would you use fertilizer or compost? What if you were a plant, what would you want the farmer to use?
• If you were a farmer, would you use pesticides or use biodversity to keep pests from ruining your crop?

Assessment:

• the debate- make sure students back up their opinion, ask them to clarify their statements
• drawings

Closing:

• Will we be doing organic or conventional farming in our garden?

Lesson Plan #2: Biodiversity

We led the second in a series of four classroom lessons relating to gardening last Friday. This time, we talked with the third graders about biodiversity. This was a big concept for them to learn, so it was important to define the concept clearly at the beginning of the and return to it often, connecting biodiversity to whichever topic we were discussing at the time. Here is the outline of the lesson plan:

Essential Question/s:
·      Why is biodiversity important?

Objectives:
Students will be able to:
·      define the term biodiversity
·      give examples of biodiverse communities
·      compare the examples of biodiversity we talk about in class to the biodiverse garden we will plant
·      conclude that biodiverse communities are stronger and more cooperative than communities made up of few species

Materials, Tools and Resources:
·      SmartBoard with projection from a PowerPoint or equivalent program
·      “Bug Gloves”: rubber or nitrile gloves with green decorative attachments (2 pairs)
·      String (field tape works well) and notecards (enough for the class)
·      Biodiversity game found at: http://www.seedsavers.org/pdf/kids_curriculum_fall.pdf

Today’s Prep Work:
·      Make gloves
·      Make necklaces
·      Prepare powerpoints [Biodiversity, 3 Sisters]

Activities:
Defining biodiversity
Game: biodiverse communities and pest resistance
Discussion: Cooperation within biodiverse communities--The 3 Sisters Model


Hook:
·      Ask if anyone remembers our names and why we are here. What did we do/talk about last time?

Procedure:
Defining Biodiversity (10 minutes)
·      Post the word “Biodiversity” on the SmartBoard. Explain to the students that this word is made up of two parts: “bio” and “diversity.” Circle the two parts of the word in two different colors. Then ask students what the individual parts mean. Students who answer correctly will put the definitions up on the board (“bio” meaning “life” and “diversity” meaning “many things”). Then, return to the larger word (biodiversity=many different kinds of living things).
·      Make sure to explain that “biodiverse” is a word to describe groups of living things that are diverse.
·      To segue into the next part, put biodiversity into context: We often talk about biodiverse communities of living things, i.e. a garden, forest, prairie...
Game: Biodiverse Communities and Pest Resistance (15 minutes)
·      Hand out the “bug gloves” to two students. Give the rest necklaces with notecards attached. Tell the students to flip their necklaces so that the word “corn” is showing.
·      On the words “ready, set, grow!” each student will begin silently acting out a corn plant (starting as a seed, growing up into a plant as the leader “waters” it). On the words “ready, set, buzz!” the two students designated to be pests will begin tapping all corn plants on the shoulder. When a student is “eaten” by the pest, they must die a dramatic death. When the round is over, get everyone’s attention again.
·      Tell the kids to flip over their cards so that the corn side is facing in and a different plant name is facing out (a few students will have the word corn on both sides of the necklace). Then, replay the scenario from the first round of the game. This time, the pests will still attack only corn plants but cannot attack the other plants. At the end of the round, the majority of the class will still be standing.
·      After the game: Think, Pair, Share. Tell the students to think about which scenario would be a better one for our garden. Then, have them discuss their reasoning with a partner. Finally, partners will defend their answer to the rest of the class.
Discussion: Cooperation within Biodiverse Communities: The 3 Sisters Model (15 minutes)
·      Split students into 3 groups (one for each helper; this can be modified to adjust for the amount of helpers, although smaller groups are more effective). The following will occur in each of the small groups:
·      Ask the students why cooperation is important. They should have many ideas to share, but be sure to touch on helping each other get what we need and achieving goals together.
·      Then, move on to say that cooperation occurs in plant communities too. The goal for plants is to grow, and biodiverse communities achieve this goal by helping each other get the resources they need.
·      Ask the students what plants need to live. [water, light, nutrients, support]
·      Project a drawing of the 3 sisters gardening model (corn, beans, and squash) on the SmartBoard. Still in small groups, discuss how the corn provides support for the beans, the beans take the nutrient, nitrogen, out of the air and puts it into the soil, and the squash grows low on the ground and helps the soil retain water.

Assessment:
·     Think, Pair, Share activity
·      Discussion in small groups—make sure the students grasp the concepts of biodiversity, community strength, and cooperation between plants.

Closing
·      Questions for the whole class (5 minutes)·   What was the most important thing you learned today? ·  Why is biodiversity important? [we learned from the game that biodiverse communities are strong and aren’t vulnerable to threats such as pests, and we learned from our small group discussion that plants growing in a biodiverse community cooperate to grow]




Here are some pictures from our activities this week:

Learning what biodiversity means

Corn plants growing

After the pest had killed all the corn