Response to "Thinking about teaching & learning gardens"

A small aside: in my last EDCP 441 lecture on assessment strategies, we focused on strategies on "assessment for learning". Two of the strategies that stood out to me were the flipped classroom and whiteboard exercise strategies, which I could see myself incorporating in my own classroom.

As so I think to myself: how would the flipped classroom model and whiteboard exercises fit in an outdoor garden classroom? I theorize that the flipped classroom model actually synergizes well with the garden classroom environment. Since the introduction of material happens at home instead of at school, we wouldn't need to worry about things like overhead projectors or screens in order to present information. Instead, the class would have a debrief segment that doesn't require any equipment, and plenty of time to do exercises together.

At the UBC Orchard Garden, there are plenty of supplies in a small shed, including flat surfaces (clipboards and cardboard) that students can write on. I could see those being used for any extra notetaking that students may need to do, or if they decide to catch up on work they can write. For the whiteboard exercises, I could simply stock the shed with small portable whiteboard surfaces, fresh markers, and whiteboard erasers.

While I said that students can catch up on work if there is extra time, why not take advantage of the garden environment to do something else instead? Perhaps we can conduct a math lab where students can measure objects and distances in a geometry unit, or heights of trees using trigonometry. Another idea I came up with was inspired by the reading: a year-long financial activity that can be held together with a business education class. The garden can grow food, and at the school carnival they can sell the food. After the event, an exercise that can be done is to consider the finances and transactions that occurred, which can even take work load off the business students. Finally, we can also conduct introductory and noncognitive development classes (like the ones at the start of each year) where the students don't need to bring much -- while the classroom is fine for these things, many introductory activities (like two truths and a lie, simply giving facts about yourself based on prompts, etc.) could benefit from empathy-encouraging environment that the garden offers, especially during that vulnerable time of year when things are fresh between students.

Regarding the benefits of doing this, the reading outlines many of the general ones: building a respect for living ecosystems, letting the living world act as co-teachers, a change of scenery, linkages to indigenous pedagogies, and the collaborative activities can build rapport among subject areas, ages, and different roles within the school. In terms of mathematics, the garden is a very real-world environment, which allows us to apply what we learn in a more practical way, with ideas listed above. The garden can also make a potentially dry topic like math be more exciting, as the classroom environment can be stale for many.

However, there are certainly difficulties and considerations to make if we were to do this. As the reading states, funding is a major issue that had to be circumvented with many fundraising efforts and negotiations in order to earn grant funding. Another idea goes back to my financial unit idea from above: use the garden food sales to help fund the garden, creating a positive feedback loop. Other than that, we would also need to choose the location wisely (convenient enough to get to from the regular classrooms), which may be hard if the options are limited based on which plots of land the authorities are willing to give/sell. Negotiations and even presentations to educate the relevant parties on the benefits of gardens in schools could ease up the process, especially given past successes in schools around the world. There could be questions from guardians that have reservations about the idea, but it shouldn't be a big problem if they are made aware ahead of time that a garden will be incorporated into classes, along with the same facts and research that can go towards the presentations mentioned earlier. Finally, storing the outdoor equipment and establishing any man-made things would take time, effort and money. My own experiences in the garden can address this -- a small shed is good enough to hold everything necessary. Even the weather can be addressed with casual prop-up canopies that fit in the shed. Regarding effort, students are always looking for volunteer hours. Why not offer them a unique opportunity to develop the next idea in education, also teaching skills like gardening and construction?

One last thing that made me go "interesting" regarding this topic: in the technological era of the 21st century, gardens and returning to nature has been shown to be a viable, even advantageous idea. The contrast is certainly something to think about!