Program Evaluation

What did you ask students to evaluate their learning? What was your rubric for evaluating them?

At the beginning of the program, we asked students to finish several sentences to capture their goals for our time together:

"I want to learn..." / "I'm curious about..."

• how to keep plants alive

• how to make herbal tea / what different herbs are good for

• how to grow food

• different flowers

• the importance of gardening

• how to protect the garden in the winter

• how to treat bug bites and stings

"We should..."

• go on field trips

• do something with the big open space / fence facing Kostner

• fix the pond

• have fun

We weren't able to address all of these curiosities and visions during the program, but we made plans for addressing as many as we could, especially the ones shared by multiple students (underlined). 

What responses did you receive from students via your evaluation?

In the final week of the program, we surveyed the students to see what knowledge they had gained on their main concern "how to keep plants alive" and they did really well!

They also had to complete surveys about how they felt personally about what they'd accomplished during the program, and we overheard anecdotal remarks like "I think our work benefited our community a lot, because people ate the food we grew." 

We hosted an open garden hour for students to invite their families, where they gave tours, showed guests how to harvest, served tea and pickles they made, facilitated a bingo game with garden bingo cards they made, and made concrete stepping stones with younger siblings. When preparing for the event, we asked "What have you done or learned that you are most proud of and excited to show off?" Students boasted about the benches they built, the signs they painted, the stepping stones they made, and the raspberry patch they planted. During the event, we could hear the enthusiasm and knowledge / confidence gained through the tours they gave to family members and strangers. 

Reflect: How do students' responses inform your understanding of student learning? How does it inform your teaching practice?

Generally, I appreciate that high school students (and younger) will be very up front with you about if they are learning and having a good time. It makes teaching rewarding because you can address learning gaps and achievements in the moment. We often have a lot of feedback from our students during CAPE sessions because they feel comfortable sharing their experiences with us in real time. 

However, not all students are vocal in the moment about what they are learning or their engagement. In this group, we had a few students who had just graduated middle school and were trying to show their "cool" side to peers. It was a positive surprise to learn through the group discussion, surveys, and tours that they did in fact learn the knowledge they sought, and to see that their inner-engagement was actually quite strong. We also had some students who felt doubtful of their knowledge, but during our group discussion, they (and we) realized they knew a lot!

Program Documentation

What activities did you work on with students? Write descriptions along with pictures and videos of student work

Personal Plant Check-Ins
In the first week of the program, each student picked a plant in the garden and put their name by it. Each morning when we went outside, they had to go find their plant and observe it. During this time, we walked around and talked to each student about their plant's progress. 

Planting / Harvesting
Every day, students harvested any crops that were ready and took them home or to the Love Fridge. They also planted new seeds when space became available, mostly beans, radishes, and carrots. This year was a slow growing season due to the weather, but the garden will continue to grow and have bounty for Fall. 

Weeding
These students were the best weeders I've ever seen! We included common weeds in our bingo game so that students would get comfortable identifying them. 

Plant ID + Paver bed labels
On the first day of class, students were assigned a bed in the garden and instructed to download two plant identification apps. Using those apps and existing lables in the bed, they figured out what was present (crops as well as weeds) and presented that to the rest of the class. They then painted paver-bricks to be placed on the raised beds as lables for what was inside. 

Field Trips
We went on the following field trips to gain context for our gardening efforts:

• Chicago Botanic Garden - toured the edible garden island, the bonsai exhibit, saw the inside of a beehive, and took a tram tour.

• Field Museum - toured the Hall of Plants and got a behind-the-scenes tour from the Head of Botany, including information about opportunities for high school students to intern at the museum, and a look at the Economic Botany Collection. 

• Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum - toured the museum and butterfly haven, and did an educational workshop about biodiversity led by museum educations staff. 

Benches
The garden suffers from a lack of seating, so we made benches using cinderblocks and wooden 4" x 4"s. Students took a walk through the garden and picked four locations where they would like to have seating. I led one group of students through building the first bench, and then those students each split off to each lead an additional group in bench building. When the benches were finished, the students decided they really wanted to paint them. They picked out paint colors and made their designs in small groups. 

Raspberry Patch
We planted a whole fence line of raspberries last year that immediately got mown down to student dismay! Students picked a section of fence line and dug a trench to transplant native black raspberry cuttings. As early as next year, students should be able to pick raspberries while leaving school in the Spring and Summer. 

Tire Trail
Many students wanted to have some way of planting along the fence facing Kostner (the biggest street) to block the industrial area and traffic from school view. One solution we came up with was to use tires as planters. We contacted Arandas Tires, about a 7 min walk from the school, and they agreed to save their scrap tires for us if we could pick them up. We walked over as a class, planning to role the tires down the sidewalk back to school. When we got there, the staff offered to deliver the tires, but the students were so excited about rolling them, they gave each one a tire to roll and delivered the rest. We rolled them back to school, painted them, and began planting perinial plants in them that will hopefully one day grow big and tall. 

Mosaic Stepping Stones / Meditation Labyrinth
Previous Garden Club students had proposed building a meditation labyrinth in the garden, but we never had enough time or funding to complete this project during the school year. This summer, we started our labrynth! First, students measured the space and calculated how many stepping stones & how much concrete mix we needed. Then, they made a sample of the maze path in the classroom using paper, which they translated onto weed-block fabric and pinned down outside. Students voted on mold shapes, and made mosaic patterns with glass that they poured concrete on top of. Casting / concrete drying was slow at times due to the rainy weather. We have 12 stones completed and an estimated 76 to go, which will be completed during the school year. 

Herbal Tea
Each day, students harvested plants for herbal tea and hung them to dry in the classroom. When they were dry, they packaged them into containers and made labels describing the medicinal benefits of each plant. For the family-garden hour, they made iced tea to serve to their parents. 

Garden Signage
After several days in the garden, students came up with a list of messages they felt needed to be visible in the garden. Mostly practical: "Do Not Mow" "No Dogs Allowed" but some more whimsical "Be Aware of Bunnies, they will not hurt you but they are here!". They painted the messages on wooden signboards and hung them up on the fence surrounding the garden. 

Fencing
The garden is mowed by a contracted company who we are not able to communicate with, which often leads to mown down plants and trees. Students built a fence to protect a pollinator garden that kept getting mown, as well as a new raspberry patch, and two new trees.  

Garden Bingo
Throughout the program, as an indoor afternoon activity, students cards for a garden bingo game. Each day we made a list of things we saw in the garden (plants, insects, animals, etc.) and each student picked one to draw. Each drawing had to be accompanied by fun facts about that thing. We played bingo using our cards at the family-garden hour & freshman orientation.

Foraging Walks
We took walks around the school grounds and neighboring streets and identified plants using our apps and our memories. We found wild mulberries, grapes, mugwort, chicory, horsetail, evening primrose, and other plants. We also enjoyed looking at people's gardens. 

Pressed Leaves & Cyanotype on Fabric
Throughout the program, students gathered leaves and flowers to press and laminate. At the end of the program, we made bandanas and t-shirts with them using cyanotype (photo-sensitive) dye. 

Freshman Connection & Orientation
Student gave garden tours and led Freshman Connection students in planting seeds. They also made buttons and shrinkydinks advertising the Garden Club to give to freshman during orientation.