Second Day at Columbia Heights: Plant family Game

As the microgreens were still germinating, we decided to play the plant family card game with the students on the second day. We explained the guidelines and rules for the game and gave each student a card with a plant name. The students were excited to find their plant family and eventually found one another. Once they found their family, we asked what are the similar characteristics of the plant family? And what do they have in common? The students did a good job telling the class the basic observations and explaining which fruits belong in that family. After the students answered us, we gave them our scientific terms of the plant characteristics and commonalities. Over all, I thought this was a very interactive and useful lesson that the students enjoyed doing with us.  

First Day at Columbia Heights: Planting Microgreens.

The first day, we did the planting of microgreens lesson with the peas and sunflower seeds. Alisha and I demonstrated to the class how to plant the seeds by planting one side filled with peas and the other with sunflower seeds. Half of the class had never planted before, so we had to help the students along the way when they we planting in groups. We also asked the students to make scientific observations of the microgreens once they begin to germinate. Alisha and I did a quick lesson on what germination means, what is microgreens, and what a plant needs in order to germinate. The class enjoyed our lesson and glad we had enough time to do all of these activities with them!

London at Night Time!

London at night time, we got to see the London eye and Buckingham Palace light up. If I ever go back to London, I would ride the London eye! Also wished I saw the changing of the guards, which I didn't get to see during the day!

Wisley Garden

Here are some more picture from Wisley Garden, I took a lot of them thought I share a few with you.

I loved the vibrant colors on the flower plants and the landscape of Wesley garden was pretty. I can't get over the neat bathroom signs! :D

 

Adventure time at Hampton Court

This swan was very friendly because he/she came very close to me! The swan even got out of the water and stood right by us for food. It was my first time experience seeing a swan in real life.

Adventure time at Hampton Court with my group. This was part of the garden we got to see, so beautiful!

The family of Henry paining!

I loved the architect and design of th castle!

Another painting of Henry's family.

The Food Market in London!

Sampling the variety of cheese and bread was a lot of fun, I thought they were all delicious. [;

Wow look at the size of these wok and so much curry, ahh, going crazy! I did get to sample the red curry it was good, but not as flavorful as the Indian curry I had at the restaurant!

You had no idea how happy I was to see the size of those chocolate pieces!

Yum, I was very tempted to buy a big loaf of garlic bread!

I'm pretty sure everything in London is bigger than Texas! Anyways, I had never seen cheese this size before! I thought it was fake at first, unbelievable.

Wow look at the variety and sizes of these mushrooms! I love that everything here is fresh and not preserved.

 

Applesauce & Microgreens on scrambled eggs, yum!

My roommate Erin and I had some good times grocery shopping at Testco, we went there a lot for late night runs! We bought microgreens, eggs, spinach, peppers, loaf of bread, cheese, and ham to make lunch sandwiches! We made scramble eggs with peppers and topped it off with our deliciously nutritious microgreens. I made a breakfast sandwich filled with spinach on the bottom, ham, cheese, and put the scrambled eggs on top, yummy! We also made apple sauce with the left over apples we had from apple taste testing with the students. Yum, yum, yum, I want to make apple sauce and my breakfast sandwich again! :D

Last Day at Columbia Heights: Harvesting microgreens!

Thursday April the 24th was the last day of teaching for Alisha and I at Columbia Heights Middle School. The students were formed into groups of 4 and given a half tray of the microgreens. They used scissors to harvest the microgreens and washed the plants in the sink. Alisha and I demonstrated at the beginning of class how to harvest and eat them afterwards with crackers and cheese. As I was walking around the class, I assisted students who needed help cutting the microgreens. After the students washed the dirt off the plants, I asked them to taste and see if they notice a difference between the peas and sunflower plants. Most of the students liked the peas more than sunflowers and they thought it was weird that the sunflower seed shell was still on the plants. The students definitely loved eating the microgreens more when they were on crackers and cheese than by itself. The students were very rowdy due to testing, but had some good questions about plants at the end of class. They asked if plants can die from too much watering and if plants can grow if the temperature was too cold. They asked us if we were coming back and if we liked them, I said of course we like you! So far the students were sarcastically funny and fun to work with in class. 

Last Day of Teaching at Mounds Park

Today was the last day we were able to go into Mounds Park Academy to teach our 3rd and 4th grade classes. They finally got to harvest and eat their microgreens, which was really exciting. They absolutely DEVOURED them too! During the first lesson we had kids saying "Oh, I probably won't eat any" but today they liked them so much that we had kids going back for seconds and thirds of the peas and sunflowers. One class even had enough that they could take some home in bags.
At the end of our lesson we had them write responses to a few wrap-up questions and got some really good feedback. One question we asked was what was the most interesting thing they learned. Their responses ranged from excitement that you could eat sunflowers, to interest in how some parts of different plants are poisonous, to happiness that the seeds grew so fast and were good to eat. One class even included why they think it's important for them to know how food grows and they had really insightful answers. Many put that they need to know how their food grows in order to know what is going into their bodies when they eat, that it would be important to know if they want to grow their own food, and that so you know how to plant food to feed others. Lastly, we got some great thank you notes and drawings that I've shared below.

Microgreens at Columbia Heights

Thursday was our last day of teaching at Columbia Heights. The students had testing for part of the morning so we were only able to come in for one class from 10:15-10:45. Because of the block schedule and them not having class last Friday, we had the second class that we did last week. This class did not get to plant the microgreens because we didn't realize that we would have a different class, but they did get the opportunity to observe the microgreens last week and helped water them. During Thursday's class we had the opportunity to eat the microgreens with the students. We brought crackers and cheese and gave them the option of having cheese or not. We had the students help us harvest the trays of microgreens by cutting them with a scissors near the soil surface and wash them. We taught a science class so they had sinks in the classroom. A few of the students tried the pea and sunflower microgreens without crackers at first. It seemed as though most of them did not like the sunflower microgreens. I personally thought that the sunflowers had a little bit of a spicy flavor, but thought they tasted good. The students enjoyed the pea microgreens. Some of the students said that the microgreens tasted like grass. Once they tried the microgreens on the crackers either with or without cheese they liked them more. Overall, I think the class really enjoyed eating the microgreens. Some students came up for 2-3 crackers if they wanted. This was all we had time for in the half hour and the students were pretty rowdy that day probably because they had just tested for an hour and a half and were going to lunch after class. I think the microgreens tasted really good on crackers as well.

MNIC microgreens

So, Hunter and I went in two weeks ago to work with Spark-Y and the students at MNIC, the internship high school. As mentioned before, they have an aquaponics system and are growing microgreens indoors.

Right now, they are mostly selling their products at the Kingfield Farmers' Market. They have several varieties of microgreens and some vegetables, and have a goal of raising $1000 by the end of the year through their garden sales.

We are focusing on the microgreen side of their business for now. The first day we went to see them, we looked at their growing setups and talked about how they are packaging, pricing and selling things at the market. Hunter made a spreadsheet for them to use, so they can put information about their input costs and selling prices, and find out how much profit they can expect to make based on the amount of product they sell. He gave them some suggestions on pricing too--such as pricing different types of microgreens differently based on their popularity, and cutting prices down at the end of the day to try to sell out of what they have. Hopefully they'll be able to tinker with some of those things and find a system that works for them so they can meet their profit goal!

Next week, we're hoping to bring them over to the Saint Paul campus to see Cornercopia, so we'll post an update after that!

New Foods in England

Long ago, I know, but I wanted to share what May and I did for our grocery shopping assignment in London, when we were asked to pick up some unfamiliar or England-specific foods and try preparing them.

Here's what we chose--microgreens (of course!) and a Bramley apple.

We decided to get as creative with the apple as our limited cooking supplies allowed. Since Bramleys are pretty terrible when they're raw, we knew cooking it somehow was the way to go... so we made applesauce!

This involved chopping the apple up, putting it in a pan on the stove and adding some water and sugar--which was greatly needed; even after the apple was cooked it was still sour. Luckily there were complementary sugar packets in the lobby!

After 15 minutes or so, the apples will cook down to mush, basically, and you have applesauce!

After

Before

We were pretty excited.

The microgreens got a simple treatment, but that's probably for the best. Since we were packing lunches every day, I just cut them off and put them on my sandwiches. They were really nice. I liked that they came still in the growing medium--they stayed fresh the whole week that way.

And... McVities chocolate digestives, the most wonderful cookie in the world. This doesn't really count because I just ate them straight out of the package, but I felt I needed to include them because I loved them so much. The ones I brought home with me are long gone. Luckily, though, one of my coworkers found them (!!!) at an import store somewhere in the Twin Cities, so I might be able to keep feeding my addiction.

Allergies and Classroom Activities

Being horticulture instructors, many of our lessons with kids involve food. It's a good way to get them involved and interested in the subject matter. The number one problem you are going to run into with activities that involve food are allergies. I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like kids have more allergies and intolerances than ever before. I certainly don't remember many kids having them back when I was in elementary school. But it is a fact of life you have to deal with and tailoring lessons around these problems is essential to happy kids and happy parents. Here are some general guidelines to follow if you're teaching a lesson involving food in a classroom.
1. The first thing you need to do is find out if the kids in your classroom has an allergy. This is often information that all teachers will have for you should you need it. If you classroom is allergy free, then you're pretty much set to go. Not many kids will have vegetable allergies so what you have to worry about more are the things you bring to eat with the vegetables (crackers, dips, spreads, etc).
2. Check for intolerances. Gluten and dairy intolerance are also becoming much more common so if you want to bring food in, check classes for these common occurrences as well.
3. Once you've established what allergies and intolerances you are facing, figure out a few basic food items you CAN bring in. It's good to have supplemental items along with vegetables for kids to have like crackers. I recommend bringing a plain variety of crackers and a gluten-free variety of cracker.
4. Let the parents know. At least 5 days before your lesson, send a note home with kids to inform parents what the students will be eating, what else will be provided and how they are invited to engage. I've found most teachers feel comfortable when you invite the parents to send more supplemental food items with their children, so they have a larger amount of control over what their kids are eating. This way, your supplemental food items become a back-up in case a parent or student forgets to bring things from home. And, of course, always include contact information for parents if they have questions.

And that's that! Keeping parents happy is a major component of food lessons in the classroom, so always make sure to take their input into account when planning!

Teaching About Plant Families

For our second class at Mound's Park Academy we taught our 3rd and 4th graders a lesson on plant families. We covered the Carrot, Cabbage, Nightshade, Lily, Cucurbit and Legume families. These kids always surprise me with the random facts they know and the intelligent questions they ask. Here's what caught their attention the most and which things they wanted to know more about.
1. Onions making you cry was a big topic that most classes brought up when we discussed the onion family. With one of the 4th grade classes I took out my phone and looked up the name of the chemical that onions produce (syn-propanethial-S-oxide) and had them write it on the board. They all thought this was really fascinating.
2. Poisonous plant parts. When we brought up the fact that potato leaves are poisonous, they were very interested in knowing more about why that was.
3. Many of them take French as a class so when we brought up the Legume family, they realized how easy it would be to remember what was in that family because in french, legume means bean.
4. The information that tomatoes are actually fruits is always a good one to bring up. Some kids know that, some don't. 
5. This isn't particularly plant related, but having them pair up or work in threes seemed to be a very effective way to start discussion about their assigned plant family. They're a lot more comfortable making guesses about answers in that small setting than with the whole class.

On a separate note, their microgreens are growing nicely. We ran into a small snafu with the grow light cart that they have where the lights weren't actually coming on, but we figured that it'll be a good teaching tool to show kids what happens to plants when they don't get enough light. Hopefully we were able to fix it and the microgreens will green up more in the next week.
Next week, we'll be eating our microgreens and talking a little bit about nutrition. I have a feeling, however, that eating will take up most of our half hour class time with the kids and the nutrition bit will be something we have to slide in there as much as we can.

Second Day of Teaching at Columbia Heights

This past Thursday 4/17 was the second day that May and I taught the 7th graders at Columbia Heights Middle School. Because of their block schedule, we had two different classes than the first week.  We didn't realize until we got to the school that the classes would not be the same as the first week so we only brought planting supplies for the first class since that is the class we didn't make it to on time the first week. With the first class we planted microgreens of peas and sunflowers. Then, we did a short lesson on germination with the class and told them about how we wanted them to observe the microgreens over the next week. We also briefly told them about microgreens, how we eat them, and that they are very nutritious. Then, we did the plant families activity. I wrote the family names and the common name of the plant on the back of the card. We handed each student a card and had them get together with their family group. With the first class we didn't have a lot of time for this activity so once they were in the groups, we got back together as a large group. I asked where each family was and asked what plants they had. Then, we went over common characteristics of each family. With the second class, we observed the microgreens that were growing from the first week. I showed the students the difference between the appearance of the sunflowers vs the peas. The sunflowers were probably about 2" tall and looked and had unfolded cotyledons with true leaves starting to form, while the peas were shorter and were just one shoot. One thing that the students asked about was why the sunflower seed was still attached to the top of the shoot. I explained that the cotyledons emerged from inside the seed and that they obtained the energy necessary to germinate from inside the seed. I explained that now that they have formed roots, they will start to obtain nutrients from the soil. Then, we did a short lesson on germination including questions like what is germination, and what factors are necessary for germination (water, light, temperature, and oxygen). To end the class, we once again did the family activity. However during the second class, we were able to spend more time on this activity so once in groups we had the students discuss some of the common characteristics and walked around the room to help facilitate and be involved in discussion. After about 5 minutes we got into a larger group and asked where each family was, what plants were found in each family, and what some of the characteristics that the students could come up with were. The fabaceae family which is beans, peas, and peanuts noted that all of the fruit was pods. It was great seeing that the students noticed this just by looking at the pictures and knowing the plants. The students who had the Brassicaceae family said that they all really liked broccoli in fact it was one of the students favorite vegetable. This is something that surprised me because there are a lot of people that don't like broccoli. We also were able to draw some of the characteristics on the board such as umbel flowers and parallel veins. I also told the students some fun facts such as that peanuts flower and then they bury themselves and develop underground. There was one student who asked how this worked and I explained that it is all about the hormone signaling within the plant which causes this to happen. We are looking forward to our last day of teaching this coming Thursday during which we will be eating the microgreens. Due to the students having Friday off, we will be working with the students that we worked with this week.

London foodie photos

Hello again! After Hampton Court on Saturday, we headed down to the Borough Market, which was a big outdoor marketplace we found out about. It was basically all food--it was amazing! A lot of cheese, bread, pastries, meat, seafood, and produce. It almost overwhelming how many vendors there were, but there were a lot of delicious-looking displays.

It reminded me of the farmers' markets in Minneapolis, but they had a lot more products there. You could get basically all the groceries you'd need for a week there, if you wanted!

Parmigiano tower

Prosciutto, straight off the leg!

Delicious baked goods

This mushroom vendor was amazing! I had never seen so many types of mushrooms. This was probably only a quarter of what they had.

Olive bar <3