Project Grow: Community Based Unit of Instruction

One of the most exciting parts of a successful Agriculture Education Program is their integration with the community! Classes, activities, and curriculum should be related and relevant to the community in which the students live.

 

For my Community Based Unit of Instruction, I decided to use an already existing partnership with Project Grow, and add another element to the curriculum. The Athens Horticulture class has grown heirloom plants for project Grow in the Greenhouse for about four years now. The Organization's main goal is to provide healthy and nutritious food to the community, and to encourage and teach people about gardening practices. The seedlings are then transplanted to community gardens throughout the community and neighboring School Districts. You can learn more about Penn-York Valley Project Grow at this website ----> https://valleyprojectgrow.org/

This is a guest speaker from Project Grow talking to the Horticulture Class about the organization.

The guest speaker, a board member from Project Grow explained the organizations main goals and mission. She also talked to the students about Heirloom vs. Conventional Seeds, and the importance of communicating with consumers about horticulture and gardening. The students were also introduced to other volunteer opportunities within the organization.

Here are some of the seeds that Project Grow provided for our Program to plant.

So... STEP ONE: Plant the seeds!
With a pretty hectic Spring Schedule, we had all hands on deck for planting. The Horticulture Class, as well as some of the Ag Mechanics Classes helped us to plant the seeds out in the Greenhouse. We had to clear out some of our hydroponics systems to make room!

We added a shade cloth to protect the young plants and seedlings from the sunlight

We prepared the media by adding water and removing clumps! This was very interesting to teach the Ag Mechanics Classes!

Now it is time to plant the seeds! Tomato and Pepper seeds are very small!

Finally, the classes made an assembly line to move the flats from one Greenhouse to the other, where there would be more room for the new plants.
 

This was a fun and exciting time in the Greenhouse! Then came time for STEP TWO: Community Cards Project. The students were then tasked with creating infographics or cards that would communicate something about horticulture to the general public. Students were told this was in essence their "Passion project!" so they could choose a vegetable or fruit, a controversial topic in horticulture, a lesson that we had learned so far in class... Basically anything that they thought consumers should know about plant production. Then students were provided with a rubric and description of best practices to include in their project.

This is the example Piktochart that I created and provided the students! This was a fun project for me, and the students had never used Piktochart before, so it was neat to see them learn and engage with the technology!
 

These projects will hopefully be displayed at ArtsFest on May 1st. This is a fun festival where many community members come to see the art displayed by the school and community. The Athens Agriculture Program generally has a plant sale and petting zoo, so there are many opportunities to engage with community members.





We as a class definitely want to engage with the community during ArtsFest!

While the project is not finished yet, I am very excited to see not only how the plants grow, but also how much consumers will be able to learn about horticulture through my students! This was a really exciting unit to plan and teach!

Best
Sarabeth