The Story of Eastern Elementary's School Garden
Garden Vision
As a creativity exercise, I asked each student to sketch and label (applying Language of the Discipline) the vision they have in their mind when they hear the word "garden". The photos below depict their visions.
Students were provided approximately 5 minutes to complete their sketches. Then all students participated in a Gallery Walk to view each other's work. Students were asked to make mental note of garden details that were common and those that were unique. Following the Gallery Walk, we debriefed by sharing our observations and establishing a collective vision (applying Big Ideas) for "garden" based on common details.
The GATE Space uses Dr. Sandra Kaplan's Depth and Complexity Icons as a critical thinking tool. In order to help students go beyond the surface level understanding of a concept and enhance their ability to think critically, these icons are used to prompt students' thinking as they work through learning experiences. These critical thinking tools help students dig deeper into a concept (depth) and understand that concept with greater complexity. With frequent use of the icons and phrases, thinking deeply and complexly while learning should become an effective habit for our students.
Unanswered Questions & Question Formulation Technique
What questions do we need to ask and answer before we can pursue a garden at Eastern?
To develop our questions, we applied a strategy known as QFT (Question Formulation Technique). The first step of the strategy is a brain storming session in which students are asked to produce and record all of the questions they can think of related to the topic. During this step, students are thinking divergently. Divergent thinking is defined as a thought process or method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions.
A few rules are applied to this phase of the strategy:
After students have had time to brain storm, students improve their questions through analysis and discussion. Students analyze their questions to determine if they are open or closed (yes/no) questions. Students are then asked to discuss their questions and to change at least one closed question to an open question AND to change one open question to a closed question. This allows students to consider how the phrasing of a question can affect the depth, quality, and value of the information they will obtain.
Below you will find some of the many questions that were generated by this activity.
A few rules are applied to this phase of the strategy:
- ask as many questions as you can
- do not stop to discuss, judge, or answer any of the questions
- write down every question exactly as it was stated (if in a group) or thought (if independent)
- change any statements into questions
After students have had time to brain storm, students improve their questions through analysis and discussion. Students analyze their questions to determine if they are open or closed (yes/no) questions. Students are then asked to discuss their questions and to change at least one closed question to an open question AND to change one open question to a closed question. This allows students to consider how the phrasing of a question can affect the depth, quality, and value of the information they will obtain.
Below you will find some of the many questions that were generated by this activity.
- Where are we going to make it?
- Where would we put the garden?
- What could we put in our school garden?
- Will we cook the food we plant?
- Would we have the money to purchase a garden?
- Who would take care of the garden?
- How big would it be?
- What days could we check on it?
- How long would it last?
- Where are we going to get all those seeds?
- What days will we work in it?
- Who will work on it?
- When will we work on it?
- Who will be the person to defend our garden?
- Will we have someone defend our garden?
- What would we do for protection?
- Would we have the time for it?
- Where could we plant them?
- Which ones would we serve in lunch?
- What will we use the veggies and or fruit?
- Where will we get the money from?
- Who would take care of it?
- When would we plant them?
- Where would it be?
- What would we in the winter?
- How would we keep out rabbits?
- How would the garden get fed over the weekend or winter?
- Where are we going to get the money?
- What would we do if someone decides to be mean and yank up all the crops?
- What will we do with the fruits and vegetables?
- Where will we put the garden?
- Who will take care of the garden?
- What will we grow in the garden?
- What will we use the crops for?
- When will we plant the crops?
- Where would we plant the crops?
- How much would the garden cost?
- Would the students be able to plant stuff in the garden?
- Where would we put the garden?
- What will we do in the winter?
- What will we do to with the plants when we are done?
- Who will take care of it?
After analyzing and discussing the many questions generated, students prioritized the questions. In this application of the QFT strategy, students were asked to choose the 3 questions they felt were most important. During this phase, students move from thinking divergently to thinking convergently. As a class, we then categorized and prioritized the questions to begin our research. From our research, we were able to begin to compile the information needed to decide if pursuing a school garden was a feasible idea.
Growing Healthy Habits
The Growing Healthy Habits curriculum from the University of Maryland Extension Office is designed to promote healthy habits such as eating a balanced diet, being active, and gardening. Grade 5 GATE students are participating in the entire program to develop a common knowledge base that can be used to help students in third and fourth grade also establish healthy habits through our school garden.