Monday June 10- CFE Day 1

Monday, June 10.


UBC B.Ed. Elementary and Middle Years teacher candidates (TC`s) had our first day of CFE today in the UBC Orchard Garden. I was instantly struck with a Ferris Bueller moment - ``Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.`` The Garden felt immediately relaxing and invigorating after 10 weeks of busy, fast-paced practicum. We enjoyed a musical welcome from our Orchard Garden leader - Susan Gerofsky - on the accordion. After some rounds of learning each other's names, Susan and Jo Price took us on a tour of the garden to become acquainted with the sights, touch, and smells of all the garden has to offer. Lemon balm, rosemary, sage, basil, fennel, tomatoes, potatoes, and rhubarb were just some of the plethora of plants we saw today. We immediately jumped into conversations about the learning opportunities the Garden presented us with, imagining roaming around with our students in search of different signs of life. The biodiversity of the Garden was quickly apparent as our group was fortunate enough to spot a hummingbird and an eagle within the first few hours.


We've had some previews of the learning and gardening to come over the next three weeks: Companion (or '3 Sisters') Planting, Nitobe Garden tours, Flax processing, Math in the garden, Soundscaping, Beekeeping, Biochar, and more. As TC's, we'll be planning a Summer Solstice Celebration and a Garden Workshop at the end of the month. Every day will feature learning and working in the garden. After lunch, we got creative and made signs for some permaculture mini-gardening outside the Scarfe building. Bees and seeds were on the mind, as evidenced by our lovely signs.

Getting creative in the Garden

It was especially inspiring to see such a creative consideration of unused space in a place like Vancouver where land is highly coveted. Our group took turns planting sesame and marigold seedlings before our departure for the day. The resonating quote from today (and apparently the motto of the Garden) is "No one thing does just one thing." We're excited to learn about all the various uses of everything in the garden, and how we can take these lessons outside the garden and into the classroom. If our first day at the Orchard Garden is a sign of things to come then there is definitely lots to look forward to.

Permaculture garden outside the Scarfe building