Garden Mosaics August 13, 2008

 

The purpose of Garden Mosaics, as stated on the website, is to connect youth and elders to investigate the mosaic of plants, people, and cultures in gardens, to learn about science, and to act together to enhance their community.  The website goes on to say that the initial idea for Garden Mosaics came from a realization that community gardens, because of their unusual blend of people, cultures, plants, and activism, offer unique sites for youth education within a community setting.  Erickson discusses the importance of learning within communities of practice (p. 303), and I feel that this sort of organization would provide students with exposure to differing cultures and subcultures, thus enabling them to learn more about the world around them. I chose this website to analyze because it puts gardening into a global perspective, something that I feel is truly amazing.  As a fourth generation gardener, I have spent a lot of time discussing gardening techniques and plants with other gardeners, especially my mother and grandfather, and to have the opportunity to learn about gardens around the world fascinates me.

 

Garden Mosaics, in focusing on the active nature of children, is clearly employing a constructivist model of learning.  In their chapter on contemporary learning theories, Oakes and Lipton write that learning is much less a process of passively accepting knowledge than it is a process of selecting and transforming experiences to serve new information needs (p. 73).  The program focuses on how new situations and information can affect what children already know, and how they can apply what they already know to novel situations; in this case, gardening.  

 

One of the more fascinating aspects of the website is the i*m*science feature.  There are four i*m*science investigations, but for the purposes of this assignment I will focus on Gardener Story, in which participants develop an oral history and take photographs illustrating a gardener’s planting practices and “planting tips,” and the connections between those practices and the gardener’s culture.  As of this writing, participants had added stories from gardeners living in the United States, India, Russia, South Africa, and Spain.  

Adelaide Malogwe at the Mountain of Hope.

 

 A poignant example of one gardener’s story is that of the Mountain of Hope Garden in Johannesburg, South Africa, and its gardener, Adelaide Malogwe.  In her interview, Adelaide discusses how culture has influenced the gardening techniques used at the Mountain of Hope Garden, and how the local community has reacted to the establishment of the garden.  In using interviews of gardeners from all over the world, Garden Mosaics is attempting to break down cultural barriers through the study of science, and in particular, gardening.  Garden Mosaics acknowledges that cultural differences exist, as posited by Tabak, and goes on to highlight the benefits of understanding and appreciating and learning from those differences.  I believe that this program follows the Curricular Multicultural Science Education approach, in that it is including the perspectives of a wide range of cultures on the science of gardening (p. 34).

 

Student gardeners from the Green Teen Community Garden.

In addition to Gardener’s Story, there is also the Action Projects database, in which students post stories about how they helped gardeners and their communities.  Action Projects allows students to go out and work with a gardener, then share the story of their experience with others.  In her discussion of the dismantling of the narrative, author Sarah Michaels writes that elaborated narrative is a restricted genre in most U.S. Classrooms, decreasing inversely with grade level (p. 303).  Action Projects allows students to write about their experiences in a personal, story-telling manner that is both interesting and informative, and is based on what they learned while working in the garden.  

 

I would love to use this website in my classroom activities.  I believe that it is an excellent way for students to learn about world cultures and also get involved in their own communities.  Science teachers in particular may find useful information and activities for their students, I particularly enjoyed the Science Pages section, which provides information on the science behind gardening in both English and Spanish.

 

Sources:

Erickson, F. (2002). Culture and human development. Human Development, 45, 303.

Michaels, Sarah. (1991) The Dismantling of the narrative. The Literacies Institute. 303.

Oakes, J. & Lipton, M. (2006). Teaching to change the world. New York: MacGraw Hill.

Tabak, I. (2005). Are disciplinary distinctions pertinent to multicultural education?: A view from science. Multicultural Perspectives, 7 (4), 34.

The Global Education Project August 13, 2008

The Global Education Project was created when a group of educators from British Columbia, Canada set out to try to get an objective look at the state of the world. They were attempting to get at ”The Big Picture,” not just this or that issue, but the most essential points of every important issue. As they call it, The Executive Summary of the state of the planet.  The compiled data from the United Nations, official government agencies, academic sources, and well-respected NGOs, so as to provide what they call an “irrefutable” collection of information.  The site shows- in as clear, objective, and accessible a format as possible – the condition of the world — both its natural and human elements.  For the purposes of this assignment, I chose to focus mostly on the Food and Soil section, although there are many other topics that are covered throughout the website.

 

The Global Education Project uses both visual images and descriptions to give the student information regarding the current state of the world, in effect, giving students multiple ways of accessing the same information.  Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences stresses the “flexibility and variety of children’s proclivities for learning,” which this website is apparently attempting to appeal to (p. 75).  By providing students with multiples way of accessing the information (there is also a series of links at the bottom of each page which can give interested students more information), the Global Education Project seeks to ensure reader (or viewer) comprehension.  The information presented on the website is very powerful, and I think that it would make an excellent jumping-off point for classroom discussions on the state of the world.  Through exploration of the material presented on the site, I believe students will better understand how they are a part of a global community, and how they affect and are affected by the actions of others.  In this way, I believe the website applies the Instructional Multicultural Science Education approach – that is, it is presenting information about people and places all over the world, in a way that is very much Western-oriented (pp. 33-35).

 

Sources:

Oakes, J. & Lipton, M. (2006). Teaching to change the world. New York: MacGraw Hill.

Tabak, I. (2005). Are disciplinary distinctions pertinent to multicultural education?: A view from science. Multicultural Perspectives, 7 (4), 33-35.

Social Ecology Education and Demonstration School August 12, 2008

The purpose of the Social Ecology Education and Demonstration School, or SEEDS, is to develop and offer educational experiences that enhance people’s abilities to knowledgeably and creatively address the interwoven social and ecological crisis of our time.  SEEDS seeks to prepare students for roles as agents for positive change in their home communities and as members of a global community.

 

SEEDS offers weekend courses in Social Ecology, Community Development, Healing the Health Care System, Labor and Globalization, Organic Agriculture and Food Security, Alternative Energy and Eco-technology, and Eco-feminism, as well as shorter workshops and presentations by faculty and guest speakers on Engaged Spirituality, Dismantling Institutional Racism, and Organizing Principles and Strategies, most of which are  geared more toward adult learners.  Within these programs, students recruited nationally as well as locally will learn and intern intensively and then translate their active learning to the soil of their home communities, as well as within various movements for social and ecological change.

 

One interesting program is the Greenmapping Program, which is designed to create a visual inventory of natural, cultural, and green living resources on the island of Vashon in Washington State. The program involves creating a product, an attractive and accessible map, and a dynamic process of generating inclusive community awareness and participation toward a sustainable future. Through the Greenmapping Program SEEDS aims to strengthen local-global sustainability networks, to expand the demand for healthier, greener choices, to stimulate and celebrate ecological citizenship, and to help successful initiatives spread to more and more communities.  Through this program, students will be learning about the world through their own experiences, and will be making meaning of complex issues through creative means, something that Oakes and Lipton discuss at length (p. 76).  By using community members to teach students about their world, SEEDS is building on what students already know about their locality (Vashon Island), to foster an understanding of similar issues around the world, and thereby using what Vygotsky proposed as being a sociocultural learning process (p. 81).  I do believe, however, that SEEDS is utilizing what Tabak called the Instructional Multicultural Science Education approach, in that the organizers are using creative means of instruction to enculturate students into a specific understanding – i.e., turning students into miniature scientists and activists (pp. 35-36).

 

 

 

Sources:

Oakes, J. & Lipton, M. (2006). Teaching to change the world. New York: MacGraw Hill.

Tabak, I. (2005). Are disciplinary distinctions pertinent to multicultural education?: A view from science. Multicultural Perspectives, 7 (4), 35-36.