“School and Garden” by Nevena Ivankovic
For the past three weeks I was given the opportunity to complete my community field experience (a practicum to experience teaching outside of the classroom) at the UBC Farm’s Intergenerational Landed Learning program. At the start of the week I had no idea what to expect! As a new teacher who only has experience with high school science students, and is at level 0 in gardening, I was nervous to say the least. However, I was also extremely excited to learn about the garden and work with younger students. Read More
“Exploration of the garden- Chemistry 10” by Nevena Ivankovic
Too much of the time in science classrooms students are provided with a lab that they already know the answer to and are really only practicing their skill of following instructions. Not only is this boring, but it is not really science. Science is all about exploring the unknown and creating a hypothesis and testing it out. This is why I think it is important to expose students to creating their own design labs. In the chemistry portion of the BC Science 10 curriculum, students are studying pH and acids and bases. Chemistry can often times seem abstract and separated from the real world which is why a design lab set in the garden is a great way to expose students to the skill of designing an experiment as well as connecting chemistry to the real world. Read More
“Puckered Faces” by Kyle Tillotson
“Why don’t we use rhubarb juice instead of lemon juice?” I don’t think that I realized it at the time, but watching the kids eat some raw rhubarb this past week (and laughing at their puckered faces) brought this really intriguing question back to mind. Read More
Teacher Memories: Mother Earth, The Hand That Feeds Us
What comes to mind when you think about “nutritional education?” Think about it for a moment. Perhaps your mind leaped to the Canada Food Guide and flashed with images of fruits and vegetables – lists and diagrams of how much of each colour you should eat a day. Maybe it wandered into thoughts about dieting and long nights of food prep and portioning. Though you wouldn’t be wrong, nutritional education can be much simpler, much more relevant, and could really be the missing piece in understanding and appreciating the food that we eat. It could serve to bridge the gap between people and mother earth. Read More