Guerrilla Gardening
Objectives:
Students will be able to identify the importance of water conservation efforts and will be able to connect water usage to public health.
Materials:
Computer, projector and speakers (for videos)
Worksheets, milk crates (or another small container to plant a small organic garden), plants/seeds, burlap, trowels, scissors, any materials needed to make the area for the gardens ready for install
Benchmarks for Science Literacy
11B/E4 ( Grades: 3-5 ): Models are very useful for communicating ideas about objects, events, and processes. When using a model to communicate about something, it is important to keep in mind how it is different from the thing being modeled.
11B/M5 ( Grades: 6-8 ): The usefulness of a model depends on how closely its behavior matches key aspects of what is being modeled. The only way to determine the usefulness of a model is to compare its behavior to the behavior of the real-world object, event, or process being modeled.
3B/E2 ( Grades: 3-5 ): Even a good design may fail. Sometimes steps can be taken ahead of time to reduce the likelihood of failure, but it cannot be entirely eliminated.
3B/M4b ( Grades: 6-8 ): The most common ways to prevent failure are pretesting of parts and procedures, overdesign, and redundancy.
3C/E4 ( Grades: 3-5 ): Factors such as cost, safety, appearance, environmental impact, and what will happen if the solution fails must be considered in technological design.
NSTA National Science Education Standards
E.1.1.a ( Grades: 5-8 ): Students should develop their abilities by identifying a specified need, considering its various aspects, and talking to different potential users or beneficiaries. They should appreciate that for some needs, the cultural backgrounds and beliefs of different groups can affect the criteria for a suitable product.
E.1.2.a ( Grades: 5-8 ): Students should make and compare different proposals in the light of the criteria they have selected. They must consider constraints--such as cost, time, trade-offs, and materials needed--and communicate ideas with drawings and simple models.
E.1.3.a ( Grades: 5-8 ): Students should organize materials and other resources, plan their work, make good use of group collaboration where appropriate, choose suitable tools and techniques, and work with appropriate measurement methods to ensure adequate accuracy.
E.1.4.a ( Grades: 5-8 ): Students should use criteria relevant to the original purpose or need, consider a variety of factors that might affect acceptability and suitability for intended users or beneficiaries, and develop measures of quality with respect to such criteria and factors; they should also suggest improvements and, for their own products, try proposed modifications.
E.1.5.a ( Grades: 5-8 ): Students should review and describe any completed piece of work and identify the stages of problem identification, solution design, implementation, and evaluation.
E.2.4 ( Grades: 5-8 ): Perfectly designed solutions do not exist. All technological solutions have trade-offs, such as safety, cost, efficiency, and appearance. Engineers often build in back-up systems to provide safety. Risk is part of living in a highly technological world. Reducing risk often results in new technology.
E.2.5 ( Grades: 5-8 ): Technological designs have constraints. Some constraints are unavoidable, for example, properties of materials, or effects of weather and friction; other constraints limit choices in the design, for example, environmental protection, human safety, and aesthetics.
Proceedure:
1.Pass out students “day planner” hand out and have them schedule their “appointments” for 12, 3, 6, 9 o’clock. Make sure that they challenge themselves to work with a peer they do not normally work with.
2.Play the Liquid assets: A water system and Liquid Assets: Sustainability videos. Have students meet with their 12o’clock “appointment” and answer the discussion questions. Review their answers as a whole class
3.Play the Liquid assets: Conservation in Mexico video. Have students meet with their 3 o’clock appointment. Share answers with the whole class.
4.Play the Public health video. Have students meet with their 6 o’clock appointments. Review their answers as a whole class.
5.Play the Clean water in Mexico video. Have students meet with their 9 o’clock appointments, Review their answers as a whole class.
6.Propose the question: Using what we know about water and water conservation, what other practices do we as a society need to adjust to reduce the impact on our environment? Some answers may include waste removal and control, buying/spending habits, Farming practices is the answer we are looking for.
7.Read Patchwork Garden (can be read by the instructor or as a group)
8.Pass out fact sheets about organic farming. Are there any practices that we can adopt if we wanted to create a garden here at LHI? Brainstorm as a large group some ways WE as a class can implement these practices in our gardens. Some ideas may include using organic soil, organic seedlings/plants, make sure that our plants are not GMO, decide to not use fertilizers that have chemicals and not to use pesticides.
9. As a group brainstorm ideas about plants that students want to include
10. Separate into groups to plant their crate gardens (plans/instructions attatched)
Crate Gardens:
Materials:
24 - milk crates (washed and sanitized)
1 - roll 50' x 3' landscape fabric or Burlap
Tools:
Scissors
Measuring Device - Tape / Ruler
Procedure:
1.The inside dimensions of a standard crate should be approximately 11" deep by 12" square.
2.If your crate is a different size adjust the size of your fabric cuts accordingly. The fabric cut dimensions need to be 1" greater than the width and circumference of the crate. (there will be some fabric hanging over the sides)
3.Settle fabric or burlap into crate.
4.Once fabric is settled into the crates, add soil and plants and enjoy!!!!!
References:
http://klrn.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/psu08-liq.sci.watersystem/liquid-assets-a-water-system/
http://klrn.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/psu08-liq.sci.publichealth/liquid-assets-public-health/
http://klrn.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/ess05.sci.ess.earthsys.mexico/water-conservation-mexico/