Vision

Our project stemmed from a student idea to plant more around our school as we are in the middle of a huge city. They saw the need to value nature and identified that our property is very sparse on plants. This idea spread into the idea of building an outdoor classroom. We had developed plans, measured, gotten approval from the school and board, and then the city came back and told us not to build right now as a road is going in and part of our property will be under construction. That idea is not lost on us, it is just on hold for right now until we can be sure our work will not get torn up. Our revised vision was to plant pollinators into large planters that would encourage a start to pollination on the property, and would allow us to transfer the plants to our outdoor classroom when we can build it in the near future.

Action

We spent a lot of time cleaning up the environment around us to ensure that the community can get outside and enjoy and learn about nature. Students have also explored how to use Microbits to create self-watering plants (the school already owns this technology). We are looking into using this technology over the summer to keep the plants watered in between people checking on them. Students have been learning about using technology to support global goals. A video is included of their prelimary coding on a small plant, we are in the process of testing for a larger pot.

We then went back to the idea of planting and decided to start some pollinator plants in large potters that we can transfer to the outdoor classroom once we are able to build. For now, these potters will start to encourage pollinators to be in the area, and will help our students learn about the importance and impact to the ecosystem. We will continue to monitor and observe to see what pollinators are attracted as well as how many/how often. We have chosen species that are native to Ontario and students are excited to share about their learning with younger classes. They are also excited to take care of the plants over the next while until we can transfer them and eventually add to create a larger learning garden.