DGS Farmers Market Booth 3/16/24
First off, thank you so much to everyone who volunteered and came to support our students at the Davidson Farmers Market last weekend. Students did a fantastic job in educating costumers about our homemade products and school. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the students and I look forward to our next appearance at the farmers market, which will be April 20th.
Over the weekend we experienced some major changes to the front of our property...
Students showed up Monday astonished by what had happened. In fact, students gathered around the logs and began reflecting on their performance of "The Lorax."
It's incredible. Our students understand the impacts of what has happened and the feel it deeply.
Although it is a loss in our eyes, I feel encouraged to hear students feeling inspired to do something about it in the future. I overheard students this week passionately discussing future jobs they aspire to have and all the good that would come from there work.
They get it. They understand how important the decisions people make about our environment are. I feel overwhelmingly grateful to be surrounded by such passionate change makers.
Primary, Lower Elementary, and Upper Elementary spent their sustainability time learning and doing jobs that were centered around our aquaponics system and garden.
Primary transferred plants from the aquaponics system, located in the dome, to the grow tower on their porch. They planted lettuce and kale that they will observe and care for over the next few weeks, and then enjoy their work by getting to taste the greens they've grown.
Lower Elementary observed the seeds they planted last week. A few have started to sprout, which was super exciting! We reviewed what has to occur for a seed to successfully sprout, and then moved out to our garden beds where they worked diligently in preparing the ground for our plants. We will continue or exploration of plant parts as it happens in our garden.
Upper Elementary did some planting on Wednesday! We are growing a variety of herbs as well as vegetables. Many of the herbs will be used in our farmers market products! We talked about why this important to us as a school as well as to the community around us. We looked even deeper and began to think about how mixing what we plant benefits our pollinators and environment. I love how enthusiastic they are about growing in the garden. They are really excited to harvest from the garden, because cooking and tea making are on the agenda!
Middle School began a new SDG unit focused on poverty. This week was an introduction to poverty which involved debates on how to distribute jelly beans. Ask them about their solutions! As a class, we sat down and looked at data about poverty in Mecklenburg County. We wanted to study who is impacted, where it occurs most, and how we compare to other counties in North Carolina. Ms. Patricia led the group through some fascinating articles about foreign born populations in the city of Charlotte. In the weeks to come, we will continue to link the SDG's to the Charlotte foreign born population in preparation for the Charlotte International Cabinet meeting in April.
I ended the week enjoying some Lower Elementary students enjoying the play space that they are now able to explore. As a sit quietly around them, watching them work and play with incredible imaginations, I feel overwhelmingly content.
May there be more moments like this in the months to come.
"My wish is to stay always like this, living quietly in a corner of nature."
–Claude Monet