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!