How school gardens can teach students precious skills for a technological world

This may seem counter-intuitive, but school gardens can offer students a fertile land to find out more about technology, using generative tools of artificial intelligence to operate hydroponics or water -based culture systems.

This is why the John Rex Charter School in Oklahoma City, which serves pre-K-8 notes by emphasizing technology, has invested in the creation of a advanced school garden which offers in-depth use of technology.

Ally Audas, the school enrichment specialist, is informally known as the school “gardening teacher”. She makes the case that gardening is important for students living in the digital age, because they teach them to see beyond instant gratuity and to understand that the development of significant things generally takes time.

“With technology, you get what you want right now,” she said. “When we use the garden, you plant a seed and you are not going to harvest anything for months, potentially. They must really feed things and learn grain, hard work and patience. It is a great life skill that I think that many children are not going now. ”

Audas, who previously worked as a specialist in technology, was to be presented at the annual conference 25 + ASCD ISTELIVE 25 + in San Antonio from June 29 to July 2 on how to use new technologies to start students in secular agricultural arts.

In the Audas school garden, called John Rex Urban Garden Lab, there are 33 raised beds, four water gardens, bird and insect feeders, and a large greenhouse designed by architecture students from the University of Oklahoma. Many of his students come to his class with little knowledge of how to garden because they live in urban areas where these opportunities are rare.

Audas attributes to each student a vegetable, a grass, a flower and a bay to become an expert. They then use an application called seed to spoon to search for everything their plants need – from light to water, to the protection against common pests.

How to use the Chatppt for academic lessons focused on the garden

This year, Audas began to have its students use AI Generative Programs such as Chatgpt to plan their gardens in the most effective way. The technological tool is good for examining all the different gardening methods that the audas classes use. These methods include how to position plants together so that they will benefit from each other; How to plant crops on a grid system to maximize space; And how to make plant care decisions according to the local climate and the height of the plants.

“We went up on Chatgpt and said:” Plan 33 on the raised beds four per eight “,” said Ausas. “The students asked all the questions we would need to know, then we let the Chatppt plan the garden. And we talked a lot about Chatppt – well, you are very competent, so we will put it in it, and you check this.”

During the winter months, students continue to grow plants in the school's hydroponic beds, a technology that allows students to grow plants in small interior spaces without using soil.

Each activity and project, students collect data and compare various growth methods and environments, said audas. She has her students to make their own resource books with everything they have learned about their plants both from their research and their observations.

“One of my pairs (students) had strawberries as a plant in which they were the expert,” she said. “We check all their research and under common pests, we have been (listed). And they said, “Well, our strawberry patch is where the kindergartens pass for PE and they eat them all.” »»

Instead of a book next year, Audas plans that her students create their own application of plant resources, a project she said that she was approached with students in a school that she worked before.

Students also develop a pollinators' garden for birds and insects. There are special feeders with cameras linked to an AI program that identifies the different species. Whatever the creatures visit the feeder, are then broadcast live in the Audas classroom, where it provides that students of the next school year are starting to collect data on all birds and insects that visit their feeders.

The school also participates in a monarch butterfly marking program which allows students to follow the migration of monarchs who visit their garden, then go to Mexico.

Together, these various projects help to instill students how technology underpins a large part of modern life, even in something as basic as cultivation of food, said audas. And the school garden gives students the opportunity to apply their technological skills in an environment they love: outdoor.

“We can say,” Hey, here are your seeds, we will go plant them. Let's see what's going on “” said daring.

“But you can teach a semester of everything in the garden. It just depends how far you want to go with it,” she continued. “I have not yet brought someone with a math lesson or a lesson in science that I cannot say:” Oh, here is how we are going to do this in the garden. “”