Help wanted! Seeking volunteer communicators

Posted on January 7, 2018 | Comments Off on Help wanted! Seeking volunteer communicators

Won’t you consider volunteering with the Vegetable Project?

Hands in garden-203KWe create hands-on teaching and learning opportunities with plants as a means of making a difference in the lives of Albany kids with great challenges.

We are especially looking right now for friends to help communicate about our work and create opportunities to tell our story to new audiences. We are forming a working group to plan and execute efforts to raise our profile, which surely is critical to continuing our momentum. And we invite participation in this group. Social media savvy would be great.

Please drop a line to [email protected] , message us at facebook.com/vegetableproject or text 5187286799 if you would like to get involved or learn more.

And if communications isn’t your thing, please remember that we offer opportunities to work with kids, to help create an outdoor classroom at Myers Middle School and to launch a summer program. Please let us to if you’re interested.

–Bill Stoneman

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Why work so hard to get kids outside (#2)?

Posted on January 5, 2018 | Comments Off on Why work so hard to get kids outside (#2)?

Summer club 2011-2Hang around the kind of high school where droves of students do not graduate or graduate on time and you might hear about all sorts of efforts to provide students with more support in classes seemingly posing the most significant challenges. Tutoring after school, breaking year-long algebra classes into two years and writing daily learning objectives on the board, among others.

These tactics, however, do not necessarily address issues that for too many Continue reading →

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Posted in Contact with nature, Teaching, Uncategorized

Just what is an outdoor classroom (#2)?

Posted on December 28, 2017 | Comments Off on Just what is an outdoor classroom (#2)?

Outdoor classroomThe Vegetable Project proposes to build an outdoor classroom at Myers Middle School. But what exactly is that?

We took one shot at answering this question on Aug. 12, 2017. But here is another: We are thinking of an outdoor space that offers teaching and learning opportunities that are unlikely to work quite as well indoors, taking advantage especially of stimulation of all the senses, the contribution that contact with nature makes to wellbeing and the real-world experiences that can make learning feel relevant. Perhaps, however, that still does not explain what exactly an outdoor classroom is.

It is worth knowing then that there really is no single definition. The term is used differently by different people, different developers and different schools. A look, however, at how others use the term reveals some pretty exciting possibilities.

The Jeffers Foundation in Minnesota, for example, casts everything on the other side of the schoolhouse window as an outdoor classroom and encourages teachers to bring classes outside to explore and to find creative ways to present the same lessons they teach indoors. The foundation, which describes its mission as supporting environmental stewardship through education, offers tons of great ideas and support material at its web site. We would presumably have to travel to attend one of its signature workshops, titled The Outdoor Classroom; Team Teaching with Mother Nature. But videos and PowerPoint presentations at the web site could really help an enterprising teacher get started.

—Bill Stoneman

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Experimenting with science classroom experience

Posted on December 9, 2017 | Comments Off on Experimenting with science classroom experience
young girl examining a test tube in a science class

Trying to find the right classroom formula takes considerable trial and error.

We are conducting a controlled experiment, of a sort, in a couple of high school science classes. We are seeking to determine whether we can capture the attention of seriously disaffected living environment students by significantly altering the their classroom experience. And to the extent that we can, we are seeking to determine whether teachers who are at their wit’s end will see the same progress with students that we see.

The context, which we see discouragingly often, are classes with many, many, students who show just about Continue reading →

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Posted in Compost, Contact with nature, Planting, Science, Soil, Teaching, Uncategorized

Work group forming for outdoor classroom project

Posted on December 4, 2017 | Comments Off on Work group forming for outdoor classroom project

Site plan 2017-01Want to roll up your sleeves and help make development of an outdoor classroom at Myers Middle School happen? We are looking mission-oriented folks who see the potential value in teaching and learning outdoors and getting kids working with their hands and using all of their sense to join a work group that will plan, solve problems and move this venture forward. We will be meeting this Saturday, Dec. 9, at 10 a.m. Please drop us a line at [email protected] if this sounds of interest to you.

Please visit https://vegetableproject.org/outdoor-classroom and https://vegetableproject.org/myers-middle-school-outdoor-classroom-background for all sorts of information about this idea.

–Bill Stoneman

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Posted in Contact with nature, Outdoor classroom, Teaching

Bringing living environment into living environment

Posted on December 3, 2017 | Comments Off on Bringing living environment into living environment

Natural area6Let’s get on the record here that the formal name of New York’s regents-level biology course is “living environment.” This is significant because real encounters with the real living environment just might do good things for teaching and learning about this subject (but generally Natural area2play a negligible role in our schools’ approach to the class).

Of course the ability of the great outdoors to stimulate the senses could contribute to teaching and learning about every subject. But imagine the possibilities especially in the living environment class of student discovery of channels in a chunk of fallen tree, such as in the accompanying photograph taken at Albany High School, and then student exploration that determines that a beetle or other insect probably bored these channels and perhaps killed the tree.

This could open doors to consideration of invasive species or interdependence of living things and perhaps the impact of human activity on the environment or maybe climate change. And connecting the class to real world issues and developments might even make the class feel more relevant to students than the usual presentation of topic after topic.

Realizing these kinds of opportunities, of course, would require some degree of change in mindset. For one thing, it takes a leap of faith for teachers to believe that capturing the imagination of students and nurturing their connection-making skills can safely cover the same ground that the more traditional linear approach does. On top of that, taking energetic students outside would require teachers to do a whole new round of establishing classroom expectations. And leaving fallen tree branches or trunks in situ would also mean different thinking about grounds keeping.

The payoff, however, could be great.

–Bill Stoneman

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Posted in Science, Teaching, Uncategorized

Moving outdoor classroom project forward (#3)

Posted on November 26, 2017 | Comments Off on Moving outdoor classroom project forward (#3)

May 2010 3Building our garden at Myers Middle School into an outdoor classroom may take considerably more than a village – maybe a village and a team and a movement. And maybe more than that. So we would be so pleased if you would be part of it, maybe by contributing ideas, or Succession growth1possibly a bit of knowledge or elbow grease or perhaps introducing to us to other people or resources. Involvement can surely range from joining a committee working on all of this to helping to address regulatory requirements and estimate construction costs to planning longer-range funding requirements to drafting detailed plans for specific elements to Continue reading →

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Posted in Outdoor classroom, School garden, Teaching, Uncategorized

Why do we work so hard to get kids outside?

Posted on November 18, 2017 | 1 comment

Jeffers winter sceneWhy do we talk so much about getting kids outdoors, in January when it’s freezing and in July when it’s broiling, when we know it is such a big challenge for their teachers? And so many of the kids aren’t eager either?

Here is a take on the subject from the Jeffers Foundation in Minnesota, which Continue reading →

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Posted in Contact with nature, Teaching

Connecting students to nature supports good health

Posted on November 15, 2017 | 1 comment

A new study concludes that children’s respiratory health benefits from living near greenery. http://www.childrenandnature.org/2017/07/28/urban-biodiversity-affects-childrens-respiratory-health/?mc_cid=78c824fddc&mc_eid=3ddfa7c2d0

Arranging lives so that more children are raised near green spaces is awfully difficult. Schools, however, that see their mission more broadly than the Common Core, or at least recognize that the critical role that health plays in academic performance, can support some of the same possibilities by taking steps to get students nearer to nature more often, by bringing teaching and learning outside.

Indeed, the more attached we are to our digital devices, the more important developing outdoor classrooms become.

—Bill Stoneman

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Posted in Outdoor classroom, Teaching, Uncategorized

Moving outdoor classroom project forward (#2)

Posted on November 10, 2017 | Comments Off on Moving outdoor classroom project forward (#2)

Site plan 2017-01We would be so grateful for all the help we can muster as we seek to build an outdoor classroom at Myers Middle School. More than that, community involvement will make a huge difference in our ability realize ambitious hopes for the project. So we would be so pleased if you would be part of this volunteer initiative, maybe by contributing ideas, or possibly a bit of knowledge or elbow grease or perhaps introducing to us to other people or resources. Continue reading →

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Posted in Outdoor classroom, School garden, Uncategorized