Entering Garden Year Two

Students Take Over

The rain is falling. Falling down today, and tomorrow, and maybe even the day after. Which means that our garden class is indoors. But when spring lets the sunshine through, we’ll be outdoors.

Students are taking over the blog, a few minutes at the beginning of every class, a new students will give a quick comment as to what, if anything cool is going on.

Today, students walked in to find a new sign, made by students and instructor in the after school graffiti arts program. The sign looks amazing, and will attract people to the garden.

The cauliflower bolted to seed, though it never even tried to fruit. I wonder what we did wrong. The beauty and joy of gardening. The chard is good. Mmm. Eating in class on Thursday.

We also got a bathtub. What for?

To plant things in, duh.

New Sign

Hi my name is Alice,

Today we just got a brand new sign. It says “Roots Ecology Garden”

and it has lots of different colors. The sign will definitely get  people

to help us in our garden.

See you later.

Happy New Year (a month late)

The first garden blog of the new year. From the calm snowy lands of Ohio and winter vacation, school has been back full swing.

The garden has benefited from the lush winter rains of the Bay Area. There were a few weeks of consecutive rain, torrential downpours actually, that helped the transplanted starter plants jump from mere sprouts to full fledged plants.

In the beds and currently thriving:

swiss chard, snap peas, butterhead lettuce, red lettuce, cauliflower, collard greens, red cabbage, rosemary, and lots of spring flowers taking over our dirt pile.

The lettuce and chard are ready for harvest, salad, and some in school cooking lessons.

The snap peas are climbing the trellis students constructed and the vines are producing juicy pea pods that snap in the mouth.

Students constructed bird feeders from recycled milk and juice containers; complete with camouflage, twig perches and hooks to hang in the trees. They built bird showers from recycled plastic containers; a hanging bath with holes punched in the bottom, so that when it rains, the container catches water and creates a shower effect.

We’ve hung hummingbird nectar feeders, and sure enough sighted my first hummingbird on campus in three years of teaching. It could just be that I wasn’t paying attention; but it was happily hovering around the feeder above the bees pollinating the flowers.

Students handmade observation journals that have diagrams of different cycles, and a ruler on the back cover so they can measure growth in the garden while taking notes.

They bound the books using branches and a rubber band, and have proven sturdy so far.

For our end of semester project, we redesigned the garden. To begin the year, the placement of our garden boxes was dictated more by the powers that be of the Buildings and Ground Division of OUSD, along the lines of “move the wooden boxes off our grass, or we’ll move them for you.” Students collaborated to create a to-scale site map, with plans for six more garden boxes, bird baths, trellises, butterfly gardens, picnic tables and benches, a greenhouse, ponds, signs, murals, walking paths, an enclosed flower garden, fruit trees and much, much more.

We’ve met with outside agencies, and are working on a proposal to the district to beautify and green our campus through an edible school garden.

Finally, we are going to be working with the neighboring elementary school to help their own “Kinder”garden and 2^nd grade edible garden. The elementary school also received the grant money from OSSF, and we hope to teach them some of the lessons we’ve learned about planting, composting and gardening.

Roots Ecology students have been volunteering at the local Farm to School Market that  sells farm fresh produce every Wednesday. They work in trios weighing the food, bagging it, and working the cash register. At the end of their shift, they earn a $5 gift certificate and a bag of fresh fruits and veggies to take home.

There are talks of a mural, tile art, and of course a harvest party. Lots of adults have expressed interest in coming to EAT and cook our veggies.

Photos and the much promised but seldom delivered student writing coming soon.

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Happy Holdidays to All, and to all a good night

sun
The sun is so bright

in the morning,

when I feel the

warmth.

On my face

it’s rays

are like wavy blankets

by alice

Mr. E (that’s me) finally got smart, and had the kids type lots of their stories. We went to the computer lab, all the students logged onto a class gmail account, and sent me emails of some of their favorite work. In the next couple days before I fly back to Ohio, I’ll be updating the blog with lots of new photos, and pasting some of our beautiful student words onto the page.

As Alice, our poet extraordinaire, said when I asked her to type some old poems for the blog,

“Why? I have lots of new poems in my head.”

In the News!

A few weeks ago, four students in the Roots Ecology class were interviewed by a writer from Oakland Small Schools Foundation. He peppered away with questions and students rushed around the room to consult their journals, provide examples of fresh seedlings, show off paintings, and recite poems and life cycles. Their energy was visible to share the world they were creating with their minds and hands.

Check out an excerpt from the article, which will be mailed to all Roots families and supporters. Our garden was “above the fold,” which anyone who has worked in a newspaper knows is pretty big business.

As recently as August, the now-burgeoning campus garden was nothing more than a rectangular section of grass. But led by the 6th-graders in Jeff Embleton’s Roots Ecology Garden Class, the Roots International Academy students, staff, families, and volunteers have pitched in to set up planter boxes, bring in dirt, and put an array of fruits, vegetables, and herbs into the soil.

During the school’s recent Spirit Week, Embleton’s young ecologists seeded 120 plants, says 6th-grader Pablo, some of which they’ve set up inside on Embleton’s classroom windowsill, safe from the wintry elements. “We made pretty good progress,” says 6th-grader Alice. “We kept working even after Mr. Embleton said we could stop.” It’s this kind of spirit that led Martha, a fellow Garden Class student, to create a sign for the garden with this slogan:

Throw Seeds, Not Fists!

 

Among the crops they hope to harvest come springtime are chard, lettuce, broccoli, beans, cabbage, sage, and strawberries. Speaking with the 6th-graders, their exuberance for the project is palpable.

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And in other news, students are wrapping up a mini unit on healthy nutrition, to lay the foundation for a school wide wellness and nutrition campaign. We will begin work on a SEED TO TABLE (cafeteria table that is) garden experience, where all students will get to eat the food we grow.

The weather has been ideal for wintry garden vegetables; as the winter solstice approaches and the shortest days of the year linger, Oakland has been soaked with intermmitent rain storms the past week, with temperatures warming in the afternoon for splashes of sun. Lettuce and chard are happy, beans are finally wrapping themselves around the nearby stairwell, cabbage and cauliflower are still unsure whether they will bear fruits this season, peas are proving why they should not be transplanted, and have remained the same since planted and fertilized last week.

Ms. Gonzales, our gardening security officer, is giving me and perhaps a few students, a lesson on how to save bulbs from our flowering plants for the upcoming spring. The rain has kept us in, but we decided rain or shine to take care of them before we head on break, 2 more days!

Four students have also worked as paid interns at the neighborhood elementary school. The school has a partnership with a farm who provides fresh produce weekly for a school farmers market. The school is equipped with signs, a canvas tent with scales, overflowing baskets, fresh recipes and soup samples, and lots of kids running around. The market has been running for about a month and is gaining popularity around town. I spoke with the market director, and she loved the idea of having older students come to help her out. Three students at a time provides three jobs; one does the cash register, one weighs all the food and prices it, the third bags and thanks the buyers. Cristina gets to sit back and relax as local foods slip into the hands of community members. Once our Roots Ecology garden is in full swing, we’ll be selling some of our food directly to our families and neighbors. Students are also going to be partnering with elementary classes to help them establish their garden beds and provide health and nutrition lessons. The spring will be sprung with activity upon returning from break.

Hopefully tomorrow will allow some students to type more of their beautiful writing during class, but school is more than bustling in these final days before vacation.

Interested in planting an indoor garden for your kitchen this winter?                                                           Go to the link to see some easy indoor ideas:

http://www.garden.org/howtos/index.php?q=list&channel=health

Until next time.

 

 

Student Writing First Edition

Community Garden

Hey,

My name is Martha. Today I’m writing about the Roots Ecology Garden. The things that happened these past few weeks is that we started a bean race, which is when you measure a bean and see if it has grown or stayed the same. And you go back and check the measurements.

Another thing we did last week was that we made posters about the Roots International Garden Week, Oct. 25^th-31^st. Our class all did posters in our groups. It was really fun because we all tried our best to make it look really nice, and they did. So now they’re up in the halls and everybody looks and makes good comments about them.

Our community garden is big, healthy, and is a very cool place to talk with your friends and chill and kick it. It is very clean, sometimes messy, but it is a place when you feel sad or mad to go out there to your school garden and talk to yourself and you’ll feel very happy. Try it and you will like it because nobody bothers you and it is a place to get all your anger and sadness out. You talk to the plants if you need to, they will feel happy and start growing and spreading out.

This week is our Garden Week and we are going to be inviting people, parents, grandmas, grandpas and aunties to come join us in our gardening week because we need help with watering the plants, smushing the soil, tear out weeds and dead plants and more. Come in to our classroom and join us with our projects and paintings, drawing posters to decorate our school community garden. Hey dear people who read this letter- if you could volunteer to donate money to our school community garden or to volunteer to come and help us do our planting and to water them, all of us will be very thankful for what you do.

Thank you for helping.

Sincerely,

Martha

Poems:

Haikus

Nature

Nature is special

It gives us water and air

It’s so amazing

Gardening

Gardening is fun

It’s like time is flying by

I love gardening

Seedlings

Seedlings are babies

They are small and fragile too

They need to be loved

Water

It is trickling

It is in your glass and bath

Without it we’d die

Colors

They are everywhere

from small flowers to big trees

Some are bright, some dull

(by Alice)

********

Strawberries

Strawberries are sweet

red, nutritious, delicious,

it’s fresh hard, and soft.

(by Lillian)

********

Free Verse:

Earth’s Nature

Our colorful clothes are made out of Earth’s nature

Earth’s nature makes me happy.

Earth’s nature gives me fresh air to breathe.

Earth’s nature gives me houses in which to live.

Earth’s nature makes me proud of our environment!

(by Tina)

********

Rose

Oh Rose, you smell sweet,

you’re very smooth, the sight of you is beautiful,

your sound is peace and quiet,

and your taste is who knows.

That is why you are a sweet, smooth, beautiful, peace and quiet rose.

That’s why you are my favorite flower.

(by Edith)

********

Roses are white they blossom with shine. The garden is shining with lots of nutritious water. They blossom with love and care. There are beans stalks and large grown vegetables. We give water, soil, sunshine and lots of love. Plants grow within like a human.

(by Fatima)

*********

Our Gardening Theme

To create a nice garden

grow fruits and vegetables

To have fun

Take care of our garden

And learn more about plants

To have fun

To listen to the things around us

But also the people around us

To have fun

Be creative

Have free time and write about our thoughts

To have fun

(by Maria)

*******

I grow tall. I like to feel air. I like to have a day at the beach. Sometimes I get hungry so I need soil. Sometimes I get thirst so I need some H2O. And then I grow some more. I don’t need trash. I don’t need to be stepped on please. I don’t need too much water or I’ll drown. I like to have friends like stem, leaf and flower. People help me grow so I can stand tall. So I just want to tell you thank you for taking care of me so I could help you too. Thank you again and goodbye. I’ll see you again when you give me water.

(by Kalisiya)

*****

Fiction and Non-Fiction forthcoming!

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Thanksgiving Break!

What a stretch; a few weeks of working to the bone, attack of aphids and ants on the lettuce and chard; beans spiraling toward the railings and spreading pods along their vines. Frost has hit, but the indoor plants on the windowsill- about 100 out of the 120 sowed- are beautiful multicolored seedlings. Sprouting their first true leaves holding root against fierce winds, followed by intense sun. The Bay Area has proven to be a nice place to grow a garden thus far. We’ve hauled trays of seedlings back to the house on Dover to make sure they are fed and cared for over break (thanks housemates!). Off to L.A. for a weeklong trip and some backpacking in Angeles National Forest.

Students were interviewed last week by a man writing a newsletter from Oakland Small Schools Foundation (www.ossf.org). He sat with four students for about thirty minutes and was taken aback by their whirlwind answers and rushing about the room to show examples of art, fluency journals, seedlings, manure tea (ewww), sketches of beetles from our soil analysis. They spoke eloquently about environment, nutrition, healthy choices and organic materials. I sat back and added about two lines and was amazed at their enthusiasm, and how much they had actually taken in during the first few months. I realize how much we can accomplish as a group in the upcoming months.

Funny story: We were doing an analysis of various types of soils (defined as the top layer of the earth), and students were poking at sand, mulch, compost, bark, pebbles and other items with magnifying glasses. I had taken a sample of soil from my home garden, and there were lots of little organisms and worms moving about. A shell of a upturned beetle was among the sights. Students were rotating the soils every two minutes among eight groups. By about the third rotation, groups were excited to get to see the dead beetle. They were poking with a pencil, and the thing flips over and starts crawling around everywhere, sending students screaming around the run and jumping onto desks. I had been video taping myself for a presentation for my teaching credential, and had just shot off the camera, seconds before the beetle incident, in which I got perhaps louder and more overwhelmed than I have in a classroom. And then we all sort of laughed and helped scoop the bug onto a paper, and a few brave and curious boys cupped the thing in their hands and went racing out into the garden to return the bug back into the soil. They happily dug a hole for it as the rest of the class returned to normal. Live animals in the class. A great prep for the worms that are coming soon!

For some thanksgiving leisure, stuffed with turkey, spirits and family, enjoy some of the following poetry, fiction, journals, photos and interviews, all done by the wonderful sixth grade Roots Ecology Class. We also have some results from the first “blog assignment”, and may have found our future class journalists.

National Gardening Week

Last week was officially National Garden Week, and we sort of celebrated as a school and got lots of seeds planted for our winter crop. Roots was busy with spirit week, halloween dance, pumpkin carving contests and lots of other activities, so we decided to keep the publicity low for gardening. The gardening class made some beautiful signs and mottos to celebrate the week (pictures of student work will be up as soon as I get new batteries for the camera). We set up a table with all our signs, twenty different types of seed packets, and lots of potting containers that had been prepared earlier in the week by students. All in all, we ended up seeding 120 plants, eight different crops that can stand the colder winter temperatures, and they now reside on the windowsills of the gardening class, with a full day of sunlight, and a hand drip irrigation system that has sprouted lots of seedlings already.

In the past couple weeks, we’ve transplanted chard, lettuce, broccoli, strawberries and lots of beans into the soil. Our afterschool graffiti arts class is working on a large and very urban entrance sign for the garden, not to mention beautiful bilingual plant signs that reside in each box. Students have been hard at work learning about the required nutrients a plant needs, how to properly rotate and plant complementary crops, the many cycles of life that can be observed in a garden, and doing some writing to donors thanking them for their gifts.

 

AND, BIG NEWS!!!!!! We received a $10,000 grant to be used for the Roots Ecology Garden. Students were shocked, and thought we should take a trip or buy a car with the money, but I assured them it would be used to buy much needed tools, supplies, and enhancing the garden with some larger items (like perhaps a greenhouse). We’ll be learning how to budget money and prepare for the long term sustainability of the project later in the semester.

AND BIG NEWS PART 2- La Clinica Raza, a local community health organization that works on our campus, approached me to partner with them in a school wide healthy nutrtition focus. With their help, we aim to introduce the healthy vegetables from our garden directly into our school lunches, and also help raise community awareness and fitness with the garden as the core of the project.

This is all very exciting, encouraging, and gives us lots to learn about in class.

Perhaps the most enjoyable thing about teaching a class about gardening is that I am learning with my students as we go along. Aside from some backyard gardening experience and childhood memories, much of the language, practice and skill of gardening is foreign to me. We are collaboratively learning a practice that has been supporting communities for thousands of years.

My blogging will be reduced in the future and replaced by a few students who have been writing journals, keeping observation records, recording data and charting predictions. We have some prolific writers in our class, and you’ll soon read some of their talented work.

I’ll end with my favorite poster from our gardening posters: “Throw Seeds, Not Fists”

Green Activism!