FUN in the garden

Perennial bee garden, The (new) Orchard Garden

Yesterday, a wonderful thing happened in the garden. After many emails to figure out various scheduling challenges, Food FUN campers and 25 Pre- and In-service teachers in Dr. Sandra Scott's EDCP 328 Environmental Education course came together in the new garden on July 31, 2014.

The end of July is a spectacular time in the garden, and the abundance of food of every shape and size was exciting for everyone. For a giant garden salad, we harvested sweet, crisp kohlrabi, carrots, brilliant rainbow chard (enormous!), kale, basil, lettuce, arugula, cucumbers, zucchini, turnip, and, for a splash of colour, nasturtium blossoms.

While some worked to harvest and prepare the salad, others got the opportunity to explore the beautiful perennial herb, flower, bee garden with Navi & Jen's scavenger hunt.

Brilliant rainbow chard

The theme of the FUN camp is food and environment, so after we ate our delicious salad (kids came up for seconds & thirds!) we played a water game, racing as teams to transfer the veggie washing water in leaky buckets to our thirsty apple trees. In a world where 2 billion people are water insecure and agriculture consumes 70% of the world's water, there's lots to talk about when we think about climate change, food security, water issues, and the environment. Students--big and little--had lots of ideas to share for what we can do to make a difference.

"I have plants growing at my house - cucumbers, lettuce, radishes, and just last week I planted carrots!" said one child.

An EDCP 328 student shared how different plants can grow together (polyculture) so that they are healthy and use less water. Indigenous gardeners in North America frequently planted the Three Sisters, the corn, beans, and squash, to grow together providing shade (squash), fertilizer (beans), and structure (corn).

Watering game

Using less water through different irrigation methods was another suggestion, though this led to a discussion as to why most of our food comes from a desert climate in California, where climate change is causing serious droughts and terrible fires.

Thank you to everyone who came to the garden. It was just a short visit, so please come again. It was also likely my last class that I will host in the garden, since I am moving to Ontario in mid-August - so farewell garden, gardeners, and all the wonderful people I have had the pleasure of knowing these past few years!

Julia

Thank you, campers & UBC students!

Doctoral students "solidarize" with the garden

Today, a class of doctoral students from EDST's EdD (EDST 593A.971 Ethics in Educational Leadership) program joined me in the garden with their course instructors Jeannie Kerr and Vanessa Andreotti.

Uprooted cherry tree & oak cuttings, old Orchard Garden

We walked down from the Scarfe building, along the 'sacred lawn' on Main Mall, and paused for a moment at the old garden. Jeannie described the old garden as a graveyard, and it really does feel sad and abandoned, particularly now that construction for Vantage College has begun and the giant oak tree that flanked the garden has been cut and piled onto the space. We talked about mourning, in the context of this particular garden but also more generally in terms of the extinctions (of plants, animals, languages...) that accompany globalization and the Anthropocene.

Washing station

The new garden, in contrast, was vivid and vital and filled with surprises and abundance. Harvesting giant chard, kohlrabi, cucumbers, zucchini, kale, carrots, and beets reminded us of the great gifts of life that nurturing the land, being nurtured by the land can offer. What are our individual and collective ways of thanking the land for these gifts?

Harvesting turned to food preparation (and weeding - thank you!) as we prepared a rainbow salad and vegetables to take home. Gathered together around the food, we discussed the course readings around accountability (Ranson, 2003) and decolonization and the pedagogies of solidarity (Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2012).

Thank you to Jeannie, Vanessa, and the wonderful students for visiting the garden and your generous donation. Please come again!

Readings

Gaztambide-Fernández, R. A. (2012). Decolonization and the pedagogy of solidarity. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 41-67. 

Ranson, S. (2003). Public accountability in the age of neo-liberal governance. Journal of Education Policy, 18(5), 459-480. 

Math Art Workshop - Wednesday, July 16, 12-5pm

George Hart (in blue) and a giant bamboo hyperboloid at The Orchard Garden

You are invited to two free math/ art workshops in the UBC Orchard Garden, a student-led teaching and learning garden on the central UBC campus:

RSVP & further information: theorchardgarden.educ@gmail.com

We are very pleased to have visiting Mathematical Artists in Residence George Hart and Nick Sayers visiting us next week, thanks to a grant from the UBC Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund (TLEF) and additional support from the PME (Psychology of Mathematics Education) 2014 international conference at UBC and PIMS, the Pacific Institute of Mathematical Studies.

Nick and George will be leading workshops to create functional mathematical art pieces for the garden as examples of ways teachers can teach math via art, in a school garden.

You can participate for the full one or two workshops, or just drop in for an hour at any point. PME participants are invited to come to the Orchard Garden on Wed. July 16 from 4:00 - 5:30 PM to "Meet George Hart" and take part in that part of the workshop.

Summer Solstice Event

Join us for food and festivities on June 25 from 10am-2pm! This celebration marks the opening of our new garden at Totem Field (2613 West Mall; see map). We look forward to sharing this garden with you. The UBC Orchard Garden team has created a beautiful and abundant place for teaching, learning, and growing.

If you wish to park, there is a parking lot across from the UBC Forestry building (map). The Orchard Garden can also be easily reached on foot or via bicycle.

To join us, please e-mail Julia at theorchardgarden.educ@gmail.com to RSVP.

​

Please vote for our project in the CST Inspired Minds Learning Project!

Julia Ostertag and I are working with Kris Fox (SALA) and  Mariana Brussoni (Faculty of Medicine) , and with Vancouver School Board administrators, parents and kids to develop this cool idea for transforming Vancouver School Grounds for sustainable, lively play and learning. The CST Learning Project is a grant that you need to get votes for -- so please vote for our project as soon as you can! As clown Rosy Sunrise advised, "Vote early, vote often"... as long as that's legal, that is!

http://learningproject.cst.org/ideas/238

The Dirt Museum, featuring Orchard Garden arts-based research!

Please considering visiting the Dirt Museum at the Liu Institute's Lobby Gallery. The opening will be May 22 at 12:30, and the museum is a collective of 14 artists'/researchers' work related to the million ways we understand and experience dirt. Julia Ostertag's research at The Orchard Garden will be one of the works featured at the exhibit, which will run until September 2014.

****

The Lobby Gallery at the Liu Institute invites you to the opening of

THE DIRT MUSEUM

reception: Thursday 22 May, 12:30pm ― 2pm

with artists     Omer Aijazi   عمر اعجازئ     Jon Beasley-Murray    Sarah Fessenden    Stephanie Fung   Mascha Gugganig    Bryn Letham    Nicola Levell    Tal Nitsán                Julia Ostertag    Ofira Roll   Melanie Schambach    Sarah Wen    Clayton Whitt    and    Afuwa

exhibition runs until September 2014 at The Lobby Gallery at the Liu Institute for Global Issues, 6476 NW Marine Drive, Vancouver

The Orchard Garden has Moved to a new Location at Totem Fields!

After 9 wonderful years of being located behind the McMillan building, the Orchard Garden has moved to a new nearby location at Totem Fields!!

The Orchard Garden has been an outdoor classroom inviting learners across disciplines to explore and connect theory and practice. Wonderful memories were created at the old Orchard Garden site. We look forward to creating more such memories at our new site.

A BIG Thank You goes to our outstanding and dedicated team who made this move possible: Susan, Julia, Samira, Roz, Toni, Claire, Galen, Maja, Kwesi and Laura. We would also like to welcome the new additions to our team, Brendan and Scott!  

Our team is eager and excited to continue the current Orchard Garden Projects at the new location, as well as begin many exciting new collaborations with faculties and programs!

We are looking forward to seeing you at our new site at Totem Fields