Post date: Oct 03, 2012 5:29:47 PM
Since the summer has finished, my involvement with the gardens has been a bit minimal due to my school schedule. But at the same time, I am finding even more connections between the gardens and my studies as an education undergrad. I spent the summer caring for the plants, writing blog posts about them, and creating lesson plans. Many of the lesson plans have not yet been posted, as we are all still trying to see how they fit within Aboriginal perspectives, and if they are what we want in terms of explicitness. (You can probably tell, since I have talked about my lesson plans a few times, but only a few things have actually been posted to our site!)
A few weeks ago, we all agreed it was time to post one of my lesson plans. This one has been made based on the CTS Foods Program of Studies, so it is special to me (as this is my major area of interest).
Since I am still an undergraduate student, and I have only taught in a Foods 10 classroom environment, it is hard for me to say how my lesson plans would work in a classroom. They have not been tested, and I have no previous experience teaching in any of the subject areas or specific courses. I’d like to think that they can simply help other pre-service and already practicing teachers in understanding how Aboriginal perspectives can be incorporated in multiple ways in multiple classroom settings. The use of the garden and its plants within some of the lesson plans could also help educators find some ideas for different activities to try in their classrooms.
If I were to teach one of these areas of study in the future, I would absolutely try to incorporate some of the ideas from my lesson plans into my teaching. But since I haven’t had the chance to do that, I am really hoping that someone else has either tried similar activities to the ones I am presenting, and I would love to hear from them! Please email the garden at gardens@educ.ualberta.ca. Until then, I hope that they can inspire others to try different things in their classrooms, and to incorporate Aboriginal knowledge and perspectives into their regular classroom activities.