Tag Archives: education

Meeting Trees

11 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by in Nature/Environment

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September.  We are well enough into it now, though the burst of heat that wrangled itself around our limbs in the month’s first week felt more like summer than most of July.  Much has happened in the last few weeks, as much is always happening on a farm in late summer, but it’s enough to say that vegetables have been harvested, new seedlings planted, and cover crops cast; it’s enough to say the sun has risen and set and we’ve sweat in between.

Of all the things I’ve witnessed this summer, nothing has lifted me as the sight of my toddler stamping through the woods to a particular tree and announcing, “Ash! Ash!”  Maple was the first tree he learned to say, birch was the second, and for a few weeks our walks transformed from quiet strolls to three miles of excited shouts and screeches as Waylon pointed out every birch and maple we passed.  At toddler height, he is learning to identify trees by their bark, and as I didn’t learn the difference between ash and maple bark until my husband began sugaring five years ago, Waylon’s declaration of the long ridged trunk as an ash tree had me smiling in wonder.

Edge pointed out the scales of spruce bark as Waylon repeated sprue, and he touched little knobs along the otherwise smooth gray beech, saying bee.  How long did it take me to learn the names of trees?  How long did I live before I could look through a forest and know at a glance the species that live there?

“Waylon is the smartest two-year-old I’ve ever met,” I said aloud, though if every toddler spent as much time around trees, they’d surely know their names, too.  The beauty of toddlers is that they are so open, so willing to learn, so willing to connect with their surroundings.

To be open. To be willing.  With these lessons, I learn over and over again the excitement of discovery.

School Gardens and Social Change

27 Sunday Jun 2010

Posted by in Alaska, Politics, Sustainable Agriculture

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Earlier this spring when I was doing outreach for the EATinG program, I found myself annoyed and disappointed with the language used to encourage students to volunteer.  In each classroom I visited, the main motivation used was the fact that volunteering can be used as a resume booster and a way to put you above others in the competitive world of college and job applications.  It seems as though it isn’t enough to say you can help your community, and as a result volunteering becomes an act only to propel oneself onto something better, rather than an act to better one’s community and environment.

On one hand I wonder, is it so bad to do a good thing for personal gain?  After all, creating a stronger, healthier community does have positive affects on the individual, and perhaps one will go on to enjoy volunteering for reasons other than resume building.  On the other hand I wonder, what it is that creates a society that so often views acts done without the motivation of personal gain as unusual or as something to be put off for when we have more time, which we never seem to have.

As I was growing up, my parents took my brother and I to nursing homes to pass out Christmas presents, involved us in “Green Up Day” every spring, and enrolled us in a school with classes that emphasized community service.  I learned through doing that interacting with my community in a positive way is fun, and a desire to help grew in me because of that.  Now I want to teach my students the importance of serving one’s community and environment, and the value of giving without the expectation of receiving.

On Monday I held a discussion with my student gardeners called “Charity versus Change,” a workshop from the Food Project’s Growing Together, by Greg Gale.  I wrote the words “charity” and “social change” on the blackboard and asked the students to call out words that come to mind for each category.  They had no problem with charity, shouting out things like helping, donating, sharing and giving.  When we switched to social change, they fell silent, with one girl throwing out the word donating again.  I helped them along by explaining how charity is an act done by a person of greater wealth for a person of lesser wealth, and is often a singular event that must be repeated in order to have a lasting effect, whereas social change is altering policies and laws in order to create a community that operates on equality, inclusion, and diversity.  It’s like the saying “give a person a fish and he/she will eat for one day, teach a person to fish and he/she will eat forever.”  Giving a fish is charity, and teaching to fish is change.

I knew this could be a difficult workshop for them—one girl is going into eighth grade while the other four are going into seventh, and I didn’t know what kind of community service experience they have had—but I wanted to challenge them to think about and understand the broad affects of this school garden and their work in it.  Since the garden started in 2009, vandalism at Hunter Elementary has sharply dropped.  Last summer there was only one instance of suspected vandalism, which turned out to be kids catching ladybugs in the garden late at night, and this summer there has been none.  As a result, the sense of community pride has soared.  Everyday passersby stop to compliment the garden, ask what’s growing, or just say hello, and our Thursday farm stand had people lining up before we opened for business this week.  Most importantly, though, this school garden has increased access to local, fresh food while teaching students the values and skills of organic growing, selling produce, and making community connections.

After we defined charity and social change, I asked each student write down their talents and passions and then identify ways they could use these things to create positive change.  As we went around the circle, the girls talked about using the internet to connect with others; drawing flyers to post around neighborhoods to create awareness about an event or issue; writing speeches, stories, or articles; teaching others how to rock climb and learn to interact with the environment in new ways, thus increasing an appreciation for the natural world.

We ended the discussion with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Everybody can be great.  Because everybody can serve.  You don’t have to have a college degree to serve.  You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.  You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve.  You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve.  You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve.  You only need a heart full of grace.  A soul generated by love.”

I told the students, “This garden is an incredible thing to have in the community, and you are making it grow.  You could be doing anything this summer, and maybe this is just a way for you to make some money, but despite the reason you chose to be a student gardener, the fact that you are working here is making a difference, and you can feel great about that.”

Maybe they will go on to volunteer later in the summer, after their four weeks of work are up.  Maybe they won’t.  But at least they have heard it from me: their work matters, the food they grow and eat and sell matters, and this small piece of land in Fairbanks has transformed from an unused lot to a place of learning and growing because of them and all the teachers, community members, and Calypso farmers who support it.

Growing in Alaska

24 Saturday Apr 2010

Posted by in Alaska, Farming, Travel

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Interior Alaska.  Many people have come up in search of gold or work on the oil pipeline.  I’ve come here to garden, and to teach students to do the same.  Before driving to Fairbanks, I spent four days in Anchorage and a night on the Elmendorf Air Force Base with my friend Rick and his wife Megan, neither of whom I’d seen since high school.  We reminisced and laughed over memories, they told me of their three years at a base in Italy, I told them of my travels to Northern Ireland and New Zealand.  When their friends came over, Rick introduced me and said, “She’s going to do some gardening thing in Fairbanks!”  General confusion and a look of slight bewilderment crossed each face at this statement.  Why would you come here to garden?  Do things even grow in Fairbanks?

As it is, things do grow here and all over Alaska.  Hardy greens like kale, and most other brassicas, thrive in Alaska’s planting zone of 2-3, and greenhouses help fruits and veggies that like warmer temperatures get a head start in the spring.  This spring has come early, and we may be able to get the first plantings in by mid-May.

On Friday I spent the morning at Hunter Elementary, where I am the School Garden Supervisor, mapping out rows and getting ideas for garden expansion.  Throughout the week I went into classrooms and started seeds with the kids.  Next week I’ll begin broadforking, loosening up the soil in order to plant potatoes with classes before school lets out for the summer.  I feel blessed to be working at Hunter where the teachers and administration are as excited about the garden as I am, maybe even more!

Each time I walk into the school I am welcomed like the first spring flowers that pop up from the ground.  Elementary students call me “Miss Katie” and give me hugs.  They see me in the garden and run to the fence, yelling, “Miss Katie!  Can we help!” when all I am doing is measuring bed feet and borders; I know that 10 children running in the garden will not help me with this but I say yes and they come sprinting in.  “Remember the number 127,” I tell them, and then ask, “Who wants to help me find my pencil?”  They scatter along the rows, eyes darting, racing to see who will find the pencil that fell out of my pocket.

This summer I’ll be working with students from 6th grade up through high school, teaching them how to seed, transplant, maintain, harvest and sell vegetables at a farm stand and through a CSA, but for now I’m still working on understanding how to plan for a CSA myself.  Susan, my boss at Calypso Farm and Ecology Center, has been trying to teach us the basics of garden planning, but total comprehension won’t come until we actually do it.  She smiles with enthusiasm when she says, “It’ll all fall into place once you get into the garden and start planting!”

I’m excited to start.  And I’m glad I came here to garden.  The earth fascinates me in its ability to give, especially in places one wouldn’t expect.  As the spring unfurls, the snow is transforming into water and the garden soils are thawing.  One of these days I’ll wake to see greenup—the sudden popping of tree buds that happens all at once, bringing a wave of green to the forests—and I’ll know the garden is ready to plant and ready to give once more.