* How is your AR project unfolding for you?
* What's happening in your research that you didn't expect? Explain.
We have made strides in electing officers, assigning roles, contacting the Urban Farmer Association to assist with the project, develop a timeline and list potential produce to plant and harvest as well as make a list of uses for the harvested crops in the community. All that is great and the kids are excited about it. The down side is we were set to start before the Christmas holiday break, however school plans and extreme unexpected cold weather delayed our intent. Scheduling conflicts with the Farm Association (with the newly revised dates) have caused us to be pushed back even further with the planting. So it looks like I am going to have to adjust the timeline and redirect the focus of the project to the design and development of our urban garden instead of the implementation and harvest due to the season and school schedule conflicts.
The upside is that during this time of delay we have been able to meet consistently, work on the principles of Peace Jam and how they coordinate with this project, use information from my reference search to learn the ins and outs of service learning projects, successful implementation and use templates to flesh out our project while making connections to their science, math, social studies and language arts curriculum. The students were also able to take and give feedback on the survey I developed for the AR project and come up with very thoughtful ideas and ways for the community to benefit from this project. This week we will meet with the urban farmer to formalize our plan of action and choose the best location on campus for the site.
I have visited several urban gardens to do research on crops and layouts. The cold streak has subsided and we hope it stays that way for a moment. The kids are really ready to get this started.
* How are you tracking your data?
We have record keepers and researchers who make sure to record data from the meetings, including action items, task lists and psa's to share over the school news system. We have also developed a website team lead by an 8th grader who has designed a website for the group! The two of us will be working together to make sure that the site functions to support our interest and further our mission.
* How has this month’s course (so far) helping in shaping your ARP?
This month's course has helped me understand and gain the know how to build a website from scratch. This is exciting in that I can teach the students how to do this as a handy tool (I am excited about what they can show me in this arena since they are born techno savvy) to use for school projects and learn a useful lesson (digital storytelling) in the process.
Overall as long as things are going, it is fine. It is the nature of a teacher and scientist to know how to regroup and try a new direction when your first mode or hypothesis does not work out for you. I look forward to sharing more as the project and this class unfolds.
