May 10 - Final Preparation for the Amazing GARDEN Race!

Jenny Y

Today was the last day of prepping and finalizing details for the upcoming Saturday workshop - The Amazing Garden Race. 

For the past couple of days, we've worked hard and collaboratively on how to make this workshop meaningful and informative yet engaging and fun for all the attendees whether they are current teachers, teacher candidates, parents, or anyone in general. 

I don't want to spoil the details but here is a general idea of how the day will look like. 

So the main theme of all the activities is "Gardening Across The Curriculum". There will be a couple of very fun activities where you will need to work with your teammates to complete given tasks. You will get to explore the garden and experience how it feels to work in the garden! 

Each activity will hit on several curricular competencies of different subject areas and what's exciting is that you can take ideas from the workshop and try it with your (future) students. 

There will be delicious lunch served after the activities (with some ingredients picked from the garden). 

At the end workshop, you will be provided with all the activities that we've planned (with big ideas, content, curricular competencies, etc.), recipes, other resources, and our contact information in case you have any questions. 

So...if you have ever wondered how you can incorporate garden-based learning in Math, English, P.E., Social Studies, ELL, Science, Business Education, and more... this is the perfect opportunity for you to find out. 

Hope to see you all there!

Details:

Place: Orchard Garden in Totem Field, 2613 West Mall (just south of Thunderbird)

Date: Saturday, May 13, 10am-2pm

Colin - Math in the Garden Workshop

Observing New Growth

In the afternoon John Mason led a workshop on math in the garden.  We started with an observation​ activity.  We had to look at the new growth of a plant and observe what was there.  After 15 minutes of observations we gathered as a group and discussed what we observed.  Our discussion led us to consider not only the observations, but how we shared our observations with each other, and how this could impact classroom discussions and student understanding.

After the observations activity, we split into groups of twos or threes and thought about whether a swing attached to a tree branch would stay at the same height as the tree grows.  Different groups came up with different solutions and justifications for their solutions, that we shared as a group.  Though we didn't come up with definitive solution, we once again how we move from observations to inferences.

Practicing walking in circles

For the last activity of the session we looked at what happens if a circle rotates along the outer edge of another circle.  After much time practicing how to move in circles a group, we were able to attempt to find a solution.  Modeling the situation, with ourselves forming the circles, we discovered that the outer circle makes two rotations about itself, as it makes one rotation around the inner circle.