New Garden, Art and Economics class

I'm excited that this spring Jane and I have teamed up again. This cycle students will spend Tuesdays at the farm and Thursdays at school planning our new business. It has only been a week and we have made so much progress. Each student will keep a blog that will record their experience at the farm and in class. This will serve as the final project for the class. To make a blog, you can use either blogger or wordpress. http://www.blogger.com http://wordpress.org Follow the easy directions which include deciding on a title and URL. When you are done, please send Jane and Naima the URL address: naima@cityas.org Jane@cityas.org

For this week students should post two entries: Art and Economics: Introduce yourself and your department. Why did you choose your department? What are your responsibilities? What is the name of the company? logo? Mission Statement? What are the company values?What products are you planning to sell? How did the group make decisions? Urban Farming: How was your morning? Post 2 photos. Update on your berm: What seeds are growing? What was harvested? What companions do you have or plan to have? (list 3). What plants/seeds do you need? Is soil alive? Why or why not? How can we manage our soil? What were the nutrient test results for your berm?

Read this if you want info on the compost assignment and need data!

Hi Everyone,
Well, we are busy gathering and interpreting our data. At the moment we have Brandon going down to the farm to count carrot seeds and Brocolli leaves, Tiara going tomorrow to count the brocolli leaves in her berm and Bridget going tomorrow to count Bok Choy leaves and all of the brocolli leaves (just to have as much data as possible). Please post on your blogs, so all of the students can share!

Here are the individual assignments for the compost book: You are responsible for one piece of your section (previously decided by your group).
Part 1: data, history, impacts
Part II: Biology, chemistry and physics
Part III: How it is used, studies on effectiveness and examples of innovative ways to compost in large-scale project.

Remember you are being graded according to:
Support from Reading/Research: "Demonstrates effective use of text support to answer prompt."
Controlling Idea: "Controlling idea that states the purpose and/or addresses the task's question."

The Effects of Trash
What afect does our production of garbage have? After looking at the graphs, videos, websites, articles, etc. write a brief explantion that examines how much waste is produced. what types of waster are there and where does New York city garbage go? Explain the effects of waste on the environment, health and resources of the planet. What impilcations can you draw? Support your discussion with evidence from your research (include the links within your essay)

How Does Decomposition Happen?
What makes compost happen? After reviewing the sources that your group has accumlated, write and essay that explains the deomposition process. Be sure to address the effects that Carbon, Nitrogen, Water and Air have on the biological, chemical and physical properites of the process. Support your description with evidence from your observations and from your research (include links).

Benefit of Compost:
What are the many benefits of creating and using compost? After analyzing the data, write a chapter for the book that showcases the benefits of composting on various aspects of the environment. Support your discussion with evidence from your research(include the links within your essay).

What else is due?

In addistion to the other assignments listed on the previous post we now have a couple of new things due:
1. Description of pH experiment
2. Description of field trip to BKFarmyards to learn about hoop houses.
What are they? What are the pros and cons of them? Can CAS have one? Would you build one?
3. Final reflection: What did you like about the class? What are you still interested to learn about or be involved in? What do you recommend be different for the next class?
4. Your part of the chapter of the Garbage to Gold (Trash/compost) book.

The Compost Book

Our garbage affects our health and the environment. Unfortunately, there is no safe and easy place to put all of our waste indefinitely. We can, however, decrease our trash flow by separating and composting the organic waste.
Your job is to create a compelling book/resource guide that describes the problem, how decomposition works and the benefits of using compost.
Each student will:
1. Choose one area from the three sections described above and find at least 5 sources of information. These sources should include a variety of information, graphics, data, etc.
2. Meet as a group to identify which sources (should be 5 from each person) should be included.
3. Write your section of the guide using your sources as reference material. Each student will be responsible for a part of the section.
The problem with our trash: Each student pick one area:
a. history
b. data
c. impacts
How decomposition works:
a. The biology
b. The chemistry
c. The physics
The benefits of compost:
a. How it is used
b. Studies on effectiveness
c. Examples of innovative ways to compost in large-scale areas.
4. Each section should have at least 2 visuals (graph, table, picture, etc.), 1 video, 1 podcast and 4 written articles.

New Blogs Need Updating

Hi,
Today I read through the students' blog and they are very good. They all seem to need updating and more detailed information though:
At this point you should have:
1. First impressions of the farm.
2. Map of the farm
3. Description of companion planting and what crops you have chosen to plant based on companion planting.
4. Daily observations of the berm and the work that you do: Planting, thinning, dead-heading, weeding as well as observations of the plants: germination, harvesting and general health.
5. Soil and air temperature daily as well as soil moisture.
6. Description of our soil: N:P:K as well as pH and soil texture. Describe the process of getting the results.
7. Experiment Description for raising nitrogen: In Detail!
8. Research for lowering the pH of the soil organically.
Lots of Pictures!!

This is a picture of the roots of the cover crops improving the health of the soil by increasing organic matter and preventing erosion.

new Class Blogs

Here are the new crops of Blogs!
Titianna: http://titiannafisher.blogspot.com/
Tiara: http://www.tiara-thomas.blogspot.com/
Bridget: http://infiniteonature.blogspot.com/
Bobby: http://bobbysiafakas.wordpress.com
Mike: http://mikearcosfarm.blogspot.com/
Louis: http://city-asfarm.blogspot.com/
Aja: http://ajagrantsfarm.blogspot.com/
Hersh: http://hds-inquiry.blogspot.com/2011/09/hershs-first-farm-impression.html
Kendrick: http://farmingwithken.blogspot.com/
Rukiya: http://rukiyadaurbanfarmer.blogspot.com/
Tianna: http://yamuddda.blogspot.com/

Wow! Hot, Hot, Hot and Harvesting!

I went to the farm this morning and it was amazing!
Everything is growing robustly. Really! There is even a 5 inch watermelon developing. So much basil, the largest tomatoes I've ever seen, lots of blooming flowers attracting the good bugs, everything!
I thought I'd go for an hour and ended up staying for hours..It go so hot though that I almost passed out biking home. Luckily, I could cut up the cucumber, mix it with aloe vera and use it as a cooling face mask.
Anyway,
Here is a pic of the harvest from today:
Eight little carrots
.5lb of pineapple sage (I'm making tea out of it). It is so large it needs to be harvested. Please come and harvest some).
1 lb of basil
4 cucumbers
14 Nardello peppers