Engineering in the Garden Workshop

[John Fisher]

Engineering in the Garden Workshop

September 15-16, 2022. 9:30-4:00

At the Life Lab Garden Classroom on the UC Santa Cruz Farm

Come be inspired to facilitate engineering experiences for students in the garden! Participants will engage in a 3rd-5th grade unit designed for NGSS in which students design and build trellises for peas in the school garden. We will make observations, build prototypes and then full-size trellises to grow peas. By unpacking this unit we will learn how to facilitate engineering experiences that address real problems or needs in school gardens. Participants will leave with resources and a framework for designing your own engineering in the garden unit and the inspiration to get started! 

Learn more and register for the the Engineering in the Garden workshop at https://lifelab.org/engineering-in-the-garden/

-- JOHN
John Fisher - Director of Programs & Partnerships - 831.471.7831 - 
Life Lab cultivates children's love of learning, healthy food, and nature through garden-based education. A 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with locations in Santa Cruz and Watsonville, CA

[ben...@gmail.com]

curious about "engineering" projects (in a school garden) and NGSS

have an idea about a teaching tool (a solar distiller) that I've offered to build and donate to a local school to hopefully kickstart impressionable minds to think about various issues related to man made climate change

basically skimmed a publication (from ClimateE...@umd.edu) about NGSS and found in kindergarten, teachers are suppose to help students "Make observations to determine the effect of sunlight on Earth’s surface"

anyway while I try and figure out how to exactly cut steel stock to fabricate a solar distiller basin w/ a solar tracker,  just thought I'd ask how garden educators teach their students about climate change???

FWIW as I see things a solar distiller is the idea way to teach students about climate change because the basis of how the device works is the akin to the hydrological cycle,... AND there is some pretty slick engineering involved in design and fabrication (the following link is a PDF on google docs that is a marked up published paper on the topic of solar distiller - design and operation) 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IXvaMr6zbKekrcyBiPQnPMVMdcBZ4nrm/view?usp=sharing

PS looking at the bigger picture figure students knowing about where water comes is important because without adequate water supplies gardening is not possible (AND without adequate water, transportation infrastructure is also placed at risk)

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/america-going-shut-down-shut-204307435.html

[HENRIKSEN, REBEKKA]

There are a ton of ways to incorporate engineering into school garden work. Regarding climate change, I mention it almost every time I teach depending on age group, whether it is about planting, harvesting, water systems, food culture, solar ovens (a project I do with all ages), maple sugaring, cider making, composting etc. Because climate change is impacting every aspect of agriculture and environment.

Rebekka Henriksen
Farm to School Projects Manager
Schenectady City School District
518-949-0520 (work mobile)
518-929-8590 (personal mobile)

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[Ben]

WRT "climate change" just wondering if you (or any other garden educators reading this) specifically point out to your students the scientific reason why the seasons change (and why certain crops in a school garden are only planted at specific times of the year)???

the reason I ask is because it seems knowledge of earth's annual orbital cycle around the sun is mentioned in the NGSS

https://ngss.nsta.org/Resource.aspx?ResourceID=742

...AND knowing what I know about why climate scientists are very certain about man made climate change,... requires a basic understanding of earth's orbital path in geological time (said another way,... ice ages happen on a regular basis every few tens of thousands of years because over long periods of time, the earth moves further away from the sun, so the planet surface gets less sunlight exposure which cools things down dramatically)

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Milankovitch-cycles-In-1976-Hays-Imbrie-and-Shackleton-1-provided-the-first-clear_fig1_311480832

PS FWIW the NGSS link above mentions "lamp post" shadows change annually (because the relative position of the earth as it orbits the sun)

anyway have a friend who tinkers w/ 3D CAD (computer aided design "software"),... so what I'd like to try and do is build a digital model of the "weir" solar distiller (here is the first baby step)

https://gmail2834620.autodesk360.com/g/shares/SH35dfcQT936092f0e432cefbe33cde28e57

w/ the long term goal of creating a video showing how the sunlight (in the northern hemisphere) will strike the collection plate at a low "minimum" angle during winter,... AND during summer time the sun will strike the collection plate at a high "maximum" angle

A study in San Diego asked if people could identify the scientific reason why climate change is happening

The findings sadly no one could correctly answer the question

www.ThereIsNoPlanet-b.org

Make science in America great again