Workshop

A garden for school workshop reflection

Our project was to design a garden for the school my partner was Micaela Rodriguez, the whole process went great. Then we had to make a workshop to teach students what we have done and how it helped the environment. We did the workshop with 10th graders that were not in POL’s and we taught them what we knew. I thought they were not going to be interested but they were. According to their critiques they loved that we had an activity planned for them.  We taught them how to grow plants, how the hydroponics methods work and were plants get their nutrients from.

The workshop took place in the 10th grade garden and we had them do the activity there  because our garden is a mess because of the black tarps. Then we took them there to show them the aeroponics and the other methods we have there. They questioned us if they really worked because we showed them the lettuce that was already dead. We explained them that they died because they ran out of water when we left for winter break.

First we started by introducing ourselves, even though they already knew us then we explained them what our challenge project was and how the process went. We told them that having a garden was not something easy, that plants needed a lot of attention, they had to be checked regularly because sometimes they need more nutrients you have to calculate the amount of water that you give them and also the water pH. Then we explained them how the pH worked because since they are 10th graders they just know a little bit of the pH acids and bases. We also explain them the NFT methods and the hydroponics, they seemed really interested. According to the feedback forms they liked the workshop but honestly we don’t know if they just wrote it was good because they know us or because they really liked it.

The reason we wanted people to know about how important is to have a garden at school is because it gives the school a much more comfortable and relaxing environment to work. The other reason is because since they are tenth graders they are going to have environmental science next year so it is important for them to start getting used to the NFT methods and how they work, what you need to do in order to make them work, also because this project would be a good project for next years members.

For the activities we had them use the root riots because we did not have the JIFFY seed starters so we had to use the root riots instead. The root riots also had to be moistened so it was technically the same procedure but it was a little bit shorter because they didn’t have to wait for the starter to grow it’s full size. Then the root riots already had the little whole for the seed to we told them to put the seed inside of it, we suggested to put two seeds because sometimes some of them do not sprout. I am reallly looking forward on having the next generation of students work on the garden and teach them or explain them whatever they want to know. I will conclude on saying that this was an awesome project i really enjoyed it.