Types of Plants

Melissa - what are you doing for your topic? I know we are covering weather and types of gardens but can I do types of plants? If not I'll do the construction of a garden. Let me know! And thanks for posting your sites. Can everyone keep posting them so we make sure we don't use the same ones?

Thanks, Kristen

More Web Sites

Hi guys,
I looked at some websites for our project. I have found a few and am working on evaluating them. I looked for some that are weather related, as well as some general sites that will help us. I've listed them below.

http://climate.nasa.gov/kids/greenCareers/landscaper/
http://www.gardeningwithkids.org/
http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com/gardening-for-kids.html
http://www.almanac.com/
http://www.thekidsgarden.co.uk/HowDoesTheWeatherEffectTheGarden.html

Mod 3

For the lesson plan, I'm doing the different types of gardens. Hopefully no one has done that, no one posted about it so I'm going to just go for it and finish it up. What is everyone else doing for their lesson plan?

Mod 3 Assignment

I would like to come up with a lesson plan based on climatology from the concept map. This would be for this week's Mod 3 assignment. If this poses a problem for anyone, let me know. I don't want to duplicate anyone's work!

Thanks!

Just an FYI

Thanks for getting a jump start on the web evaluations, Melissa. I will be sure to post as soon as I start this portion.

I just wanted to let the group know that my wife is having surgery in Detroit June 1, so I will be out of town for a few days. With that in mind, I am going to try and work ahead a week. I have created a folder in Google Documents and have sent you all invitations. This is for a group assignment due in Mod 4. If anyone could look at the first part of that assignment and let me know what you might like to do, I will get it started for us. We have to come up with an assignment for our project that will demonstrate cultural understanding.

One idea might be to compare gardens from different parts of the world -- i.e., we grow tomatoes and sweet corn in our home garden. What does a home garden look like in London or Madrid? What time of year does gardening take place? How big are the gardens?

Let me know if you have other ideas. I hate to rush the deadline on this one, but if I can get it started for us this week, it won't be a burden to any of you while I'm gone next week.

Thanks for your help in advance.

Web Evaluations

I know everyone is going to be working on Web Evaluations this week ( I did this assignment last semester) so I wanted to let you know the sites I used early because there can be no duplications. I used the following sites:

http://urbanext.illinois.edu/firstgarden/

http://www.garden.org

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/GrowingintheGarden

The first two are really good sites but the last one is not really for use with students. I found a lot of really cool sites that I did not use but thought I would share. Some are Garden Projects already in existence at schools across the country and others I found while doing the Virtual Field Trips assignment. I found the Garden Projects while I was working on the ePals and Google maps assignment last semester. Since I am not submitting any of them as part of these assignments, I thought they might be helpful to the group.

http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/

http://www.efn.org/~sgp/

http://www.kidsgardening.org/ (This site can be found as part of or linked to the garden.org website but it has links to many schools who are doing gardening projects and are willing to share seeds and communicate via ePals. I used it to find 4 schools for the ePals and Google Maps assignment that is due next week. You can view the work we did on that assignment at http://edt3470gardening2.blogspot.com/2010/02/epal-description-module-4.html. The Google map is just below it. Obviously we do not have to go this route, but it may be a place to start for ideas.)

On the urbanext.illinois.edu site there is another game that I found during the virtual field trip assignment called, "The Great Plant Escape." It helps students learn about plants parts and structure, plus what plants need to grow.

http://gardeninglaunchpad.com/kids.html (This site has links to tons of different sites that are about kids and gardening.)

There are also some really good math and science activities that relate to our project at www.uen.org. The ones I looked at specifically were "Ecology Grid," "Real Life Math," and "Biomes of North America."

I just thought I would share some of these so you could see more of what I am learning. It would be great if you would also share the websites you are viewing so I can learn from those as well.

Concept Map with Larger Fonts

The World is a Garden Project Concept Map

Concept Map

Chad, those are some great ideas. I don't know too much about gardening, but it seems like you covered some of the main things there. I like the idea of being able to tie in the weather and such also.

Ideas for the concept map

Hi all,
I've been thinking about the concept map that is due Sunday. Here are a few ideas of things we might want to touch on as we develop our project. Hopefully this brainstorming format doesn't bother anyone...!

Types of gardens - water gardens, indoor gardens, fruit and vegetable gardens
Importance of gardening - environmental benefits, self sustaining, erosion control, eating health/organic
The role of weather/climate - different zones where plants grow, how climate affects the landscape around us
Logistics - what plants need to grow (water, sunlight, fertilizer)
Anatomy of a plant
How plants reproduce
Importance of gardens here, vs around the world

These are just a few of the things that come to mind when I think about teaching fourth or fifth grade students about gardening. I like the idea of being able to tie in weather, science and social studies.

What am I missing? What else do you guys think?

Group Conduct Policy

Hi guys -
I am getting ready to go to work and I will not be able to get back to my computer before tomorrow. So, I made a command decision to go with Gardening as our topic, as suggested by Melissa. I apologize for being abrupt, but I couldn't wait. If the topic ends up changing, that is fine with me. I am flexible in this regard. But I wanted to get the assignment in on time. Again, I am very happy to continue with the gardening project Melissa started last term. Hope you are all having a good week so far.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out!

Chad

Hello Everyone!

As I posted on the class discussion board, I would very much like to continue to work on a Gardening Project. I have done a good deal of research on the topic already and would like to share in your ideas as well. The project assignments are fairly involved but individual so collaboration here is crucial.

Since Chad was so kind as to begin the blog, I will be glad to do the first concept map in Inspiration. To do this, we all have to share our general ideas about the scope of the project. What concepts would we like to teach about gardening? What do we know/need to know? What would make this project useful to students?

My next post will be my project ideas and a synopsis of the first lesson I already wrote. Since everyone has to do their own lesson plan, I want to make sure no one duplicates mine. I also did the Google Map assignment last semester. I realize it may not fit into what this group comes up with for the project but it is sort of general so I hope we can use it. I hope I am not overwhelming anyone by jumping ahead but this semester is going to fly by I think.

It is great to meet you and I look forward to a productive partnership with each of you. I love the idea of professional collaboration...four minds are definitely better than one!

Welcome

Hello, groupmates!
I went ahead and got us started with the blog. As soon as you send me your gmail addresses, I will add you as authors.

I am looking forward to working with you all!

Chad