Landscape Architecture Project Comes to a Close - Here is the Project Outline

Our final science project in our Project Based Learning Choice program was a school garden. We started with the plan to have every student planting and experimenting with veggies, but the project naturally became differentiated. Some students had to explore an automatic irrigation system, while others explored composting.

Their work is displayed on our KRSS Garden Blog.

KRSS Garden Update

Well Prince George has shown signs of summer and our KRSS Garden is one of them! Student`s have been excited to get their plants transplanted into containers in the garden, and also to start some new seeds in the garden itself too. We have planted cabbage, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, beets, cucumbers, potatoes, onlins, carrots and strawberries, The students have also constructed an automated watering system.

As the students have dug their hands into science they`ve been forced to think critically at every turn. First, student`s each put together a care plan for their plants. Next, student`s designed an experiment they can run in the garden. They are all responsible for their plants, making their own decisions about watering, containers, location in the garden, soil and fertilizers, and how to measure the plants overall health. In some ways the project has been made even more interesting by the fact that we won`t be able to harvest from each of our plants. Students have been forced to ask themselves what conditions are necessary to first, keep their plants alive, and secondly encourage their growth.

For me the research process has been particularly exciting, as many students have been able to swap stories and ask questions of friends and family as part of their inquiry. I`d love to see the KRSS Garden become a project that really pulls together the school community and local community as well.  Art Knapps, our local garden store, has been very supportive and we`ve enjoyed working with them. We`ve also been in touch with the Enhanced Forestry Lab at UNBC and hope to get there next year to see their work first hand.

In addition to the science experiments students are running the project has also involved a number of products in their Tech class. So far students have build an 8` by 16` greenhouse and gardening tools. Plans are in the works for storage containers, shelves, benches, expansions to the watering system, plant hangers, and planter boxes.

The project its taken us in a few unexpected directions. Some students who did not have successful plants are now experimenting with composting, and gaining a better understanding of how to compost effectively at the school; other students have brought a passion for sustainability to the project, and have enjoyed the upcycling of 5 gallon buckets and packing pallets in the garden. We saw a great community garden underway at Science World, and are excited to see the Alterrus vertical urban garden as well. 

Student Samples Demonstrating Communication Competency

Summarizing Projects:

• Joslynn's post on over-consumption project

Reflective Thinking:

• Conor's pinhole camera critique

Encouraging Other Students to take action:

• Gabe's post on Shoreline Cleanup
• Chelsea' safety poster in Tech

Presenting the Northern Learning Centre Choice Program to Others:

• Student's answer questions about the NLC

A Brilliant Hook

• We often start a class after a break with a catch up activity, or some kind of icebreaker. A few times now we’ve asked students to summarize their time off in three words. Once the presenter has shared a volunteer is randomly selected from the audience to ask a question based on the three words. Most students use a combination of adjectives to describe various activities and events. One student in particular has mastered the hook. His face was full of enthusiasm as he shared that he had had the “best weekend ever!” Every student in the room was filled with curiosity and almost competing to be the one to question him further. The explanation that followed did not disappoint.

Curriculum conundrum

One of the question's I keep coming back to in considering the change afoot in education is: how do we find balance between "the curriculum" and "21st century curriculum"?

This question will require ongoing assessment in years to come as education programs change and evolve in keeping with our revolving culture and society. Many aspects of a 21st Century curriculum, I believe, need to be addressed directly.

At the back of my Math class I have posters for each of the skills we "learn" in Math: skills like creativity and problem solving, mathematical reasoning, estimation and mental mathematics, using technology, making connections... and there are more. So I ask - shouldn't these be front of the room skills? Shouldn't we spent more time worrying about these skills and less time worrying about exactly how many questions a student just got correct or incorrect?

More is better!

A great article from an excellent site on PBL. Lots of good suggestions to engage students in deeper thinking and more authentic tasks. One of the ideas is that "More is better". I was convicted with their criticism of projects that ask students to take information from one place and put it somewhere else. I think we've all been guilty of assigning these kinds of projects all too often. I'm encouraged not only by the possibilities a truly project based classroom will have to engage students in deeper thinking, more authentic tasks; but also the possibilities of projects that lead to bigger questions, more learning and more projects!
7 Essentials for Project-Based Learning | FreeBIEs | Tools | Project Based Learning | BIE

Examples of Project Based Learning

The more I look into Project Based Learning the more excited I get about its ability to teach students 21st century skills in a dynamic, exciting, applicable learning environment. Discovery Education produced histed a webinar recently on PBL, and publised their powerpoint presentation shared here http://mediashare.discoveryeducation.com/mediashare/index.cfm?event=pushFile&guidAssetMediaFileId=4186022d-2655-8579-76d3-5955f15d7565.

Edutopia is one site that came up in the presentation that, in particular, seems to have a wealth of information on the approach. http://www.edutopia.org/project-based-learning.

I've also recently discovered the PBL Co-Laboratory from PBL-online.org. Shortly after creating my free account I had generated a list of 21 of my personal favourite projects from teachers internationally. Its so encouraging to see teachers so willing to share their ideas, and I hope the NLC is able to enspire students to do the same.

Tools for 21st Century Learning

• Moodle for wikis, blogs, discussion forums (This is the page for the Science and Technology 11 Course I am Teaching (Spring 2012))
• Diigo bookmark groups (This is my personal library, but what I like about Diigo is students could be contributors to "groups" of links and thereby create their own class lists of resources to use together)
• Google Docs for writing, collaborative presentations, etc (This document was created collaboratively as a learning activity to help our Education 446 class at UNBC learn about community resources in First Nations Education and also to experience Google Docs)
• Google just gets better and better. I just discovered their "forms" which allow students to create online surveys, and results to be viewed live. 
• Google+ ?
• You Tube Channels and Playlists (These are some sample playlists I set up on my You Tube Channel so students could view them)  
•