'Our Garden Project' - By the grade 12s

From the whole garden project, I expect something beautiful where we can rest, study or have fun with others. I hope the school garden will be a nice, quiet place what will last for many years. I contributed my garden plan for the school garden, like everybody from G12, and tried to grow up a plan. I learned that i’m fail at plant growing, my plant didn’t grow up, the seed is too shy to show of. :D I think the garden will give some “green” intro our life, we will have a place, where we will have some fun, I like it! ~ Daniel

I hope we can have a beautiful school garden and our plants will grow like they will. I planted Onion and I sketched a plan for our school garden. I have learned about the importance of our green earth and how we can save the earth by stop using too much natural resources, turning of the lights after you leave the room, etc. this is a valuable class because it teaches us the importance of trees and how it affects the world. also, a school garden is important for the other students to learn about planting small plants or even big trees. ~ Spencer




I expect the school garden is very gigantic and pretty. The school garden should be very huge. Therefore the students feel that they are surrounding by environment. This makes the students to feel comfortable. Moreover, they could study much better. Also I expect the school garden has a number of colorful flowers and the plants that we can eat. Thus, the students could eat after the plants grow. I hope someone will take care of the school garden during school days and during holiday or vacation. So the plants could get enough water to grow. I hope everyone in our school like the school garden. Because it is ISNS’s school garden and our classes contributed a lot to design it. I hope the little kid won’t harm the plants. There are numerous of benefits for school garden. At first, it gives students the responsibility to care about something. The students could learn about nature and plants. I have contributed to design the school garden. Some of my ideas are included in the design of school garden. I have learned much stuff during school garden project. I learn how to make the garden, benefit of it, and what plants could live in Shenzhen. It is a valuable project because I could learn about plants. In addition, I could learn about the relationship between plants and weather. ~ Bo Whan

I hope our school garden will go well as we have planned and get all the materials needed. Most importantly, I have high expectations towards our little plants! I am really looking forward to see the fruits or flowers to bloom someday! I have so far sketched a plan about how our little garden should look like, and also planted 3 seeds of a type of flower in a recycled "paper" pot. I've learned a lot about planting, things that I usually wouldn't know, such as how much soil is needed, how to mix ratios of soil and fertilizer, what type of plants are suitable for certain types of weather, etc. To me, this is a very meaningful project, because it gets us learning more about the environment, and more importantly, knowing about the global concerns. It also triggers the little children's curiosity and they might develop an interest in farming! *----* Children nowadays don't even bother to learn about planting and farming as they live in urban areas where there isn't any greenery. Let's plant our earth green~ :D ~ Frances


I am Jisu, I am grade in 12. This year in ISNS, Grade 12 have new course, environment science. In this class, we are doing really cool project, “making school garden!” Not only Grade.12, but also Grade 6, 7, and 8 are making together. Our final purpose is a harvest our vegetables. We designed our school garden. We chose what vegetables are easy to adapt in Shenzhen’s weather, what materials we should to use to minimized the pollution, and the process to use water. The last step of the design is finished by Ms. Chapman who is the art teacher of ISNS. ISNS students finished planting seeds. I planted radishes; my radishes are growing in the small pot which is made of paper. Now we are waiting for stuffs what we need for the school garden. We will make really perfect the school garden! By this project, making the school garden, we learn the importance of farming, and how difficult to get one vegetable. Therefore, the students never waste food! I want our school garden will be started as soon as possible! After started, students who involved the school garden must keep watching the garden in rest time and lunchtime as well as the class time! If ISNS newspaper will start, I hope we mention about the school garden, so many students know about the garden more.

Andy G12
Environmental Science
Blog Entry – School Garden

We (Grade 12 and other members of ISNS) are currently doing a project to build a school garden. This is apparently my first time in building a garden, which means it is a whole new experience. I have high expectations for this particular garden and have contributed my time, ideas and designs in order to make this project come to life. I hope that the garden will grow and flourish so that this project may succeed. I wish to see the through the garden’s construction from naught to finish. There is something important that I have learned from working on this project. I have learned that gathering ideas from different people is essential in teamwork, which will result in a better final product. I know that everyone involved will put their best efforts into the creation of the school garden as I have seen it in class. I’m glad to say that I feel great when everyone else on the team feel enthusiastic about this project. We are doing something that has never been done before on school grounds. A school garden will make the school more green and interesting to look at when you point your vision at it, which is also why this project presents itself as a valuable one. It will also enable us to learn more about plants and vegetations more up close and personal.

Getting Down and Dirty with...Dirt

Here are some pictures of the Grade 7 class inspecting a soil sample. I asked them to really 'examine' the dirt. They had to explain what the soil looked, smelled, felt, sounded, moved and tasted like. Their assignment after this was to create some sort of interesting, funny poem/drawing featuring the characteristics and importance of dirt. I am interested to see what they produce today!




P.S. No, I did not actually make my students eat dirt. They did however get bonus points for doing so. ;)

The Design!

Thanks to Ms. Jessica Chapman, our Art teacher, who took our pictures and sketches and created this design for our garden which I have sent off to Dr. Pang for approval. Hopefully we can get this started this week!

Planning

Here is the area we are working with. I took these pictures while the huge Grade 12 class surveyed the space and sketched some ideas for a design.

For the past couple of weeks, the students and I have been planting seeds, planning a design for our space and learning about the importance of water, soil and sun in the process of plant growth. My Grade 8 class is currently studying a unit on Water Systems, so they have been in charge of learning about drainage in a bed and what we will need to do to keep our plants healthy. The Grade 7s are on Ecosystems and looking at the living and non-living factors. Soil is a crucial non-living component of any ecosystem so we are exploring the components and contributions of soil in plant growth. We recently completed an experiment using different soil samples from around the school yard. We planted radish seeds in 3 different soil samples, two from outside, and one from bought soil with chopped up banana peel for compost. The kids were to hypothesize which seedlings would germinate first. Surprisingly, numerous seeds from the ‘good’ soil sprouted the very next day as did a couple from the outdoor soil. I poked my head into the Grade 7 class before dismissal on Friday afternoon to tell them to come see what had popped up in the classroom. They all came barreling in on their way to the bus to see the little green shoots.
I find the kids to be really interested in the whole ‘growth’ thing. Each class rushes over to their little plants every time they come into the room. I am planning on making a sign this weekend to remind everyone to keep their paws off the sprouting seedlings!

It’s so nice to see them be enthusiastic about it though. We did have a minor disappointment with the Grade 8s. We used those decomposable planters and the kids put their names, the date and the plant name on a piece of masking tape, taped to the planter. We had them nice and moist and placed under plastic over night and discovered in the morning that the humidity had caused the ink to run. A few sprouted right away and no one knew whose they were. A few boys have decided to claim the most fruitful seedlings as theirs and have ever-so-slyly re-written their names on them.

The Grade 12s completed a research assignment for Environmental Science class wherein they were to discuss the benefits of a school garden, the supplies we would need to implement one in our area, how we would manage and care for the garden, and some plant varieties that would be successful in Shenzhen. They were also required to sketch a design for the garden. I was really impressed with what they came up with! They included pathways, creeping vines, a small rock wall that would hold water, tables and chairs, benches, a water diversion system, and many more details that we tried to incorporate into one final sketch that we will send off to Dr. Pang for approval.

A great addition to our project has come about with the contribution of Ms. Chapman who used our final sketch as a template for creating a computer generated image of our space. It looks amazing! Will be posting soon!

I have sent a proposal to the 'Chairman' of the school (not Mao), Dr.Francis Pang about the benefits of starting a school garden on our campus at ISNS. I sent it the first week of school, and heard back from him within a week with an 'all systems go'! All I have to do now is plan and organize what will be needed for materials and supplies to get us started.

I am scared/nervous about taking this on in some ways. Excited mostly, but I am worried that we're totally going to blow it with the seeds, and if they make it to plants, blow it with the plants. I've been spending most of my spare time researching how to start particular types of seeds and sites on school gardens. I found the following site to be particularly helpful: www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0218e/a0218e00.HTM. It's got over 200 pages that outline the process of planning and implementing this sort of project. The most helpful part is the horticultural fact sheets that provide information on helpful and harmful insects, how to encourage and repel them, companion gardening, crop rotation, harvesting and conserving foods, healthy and unhealthy plant characteristics, etc.

I introduced the idea to my Grade 12 Environmental Science class today and they (all 6 of them) seemed really enthusiastic about it and couldn't believe that we're actually starting a real garden at school! This week, I plan to bring them outside to survey our area, and I have given them a little research project to get them thinking about what they would like to plant, how we could design the garden, the materials we will need to accomplish this, and the tasks we will need to delegate to make it all come together.

I also spoke to our awesome Art teacher, Jessica Chapman, about getting her Art classes involved by making signs, mosaic art, or whatever else they can come up with to add some style to our little area.

I'd like to come up with a way to collect rain-water so we don't have to use so much, but I guess focusing on getting the project off the ground...well, into the ground, is the best bet right now.