Welcome to The GreenHouse Project - a place-based project in Northeastern North Carolina that connects schools and community in a sustainable growing program. Join us on our journey as we engage partners to align project goals with high school curriculum objectives and contribute to the local community through service learning work.
Sustained Partnership, Sustainable Growing is the theme for the “Green”House Project in the Northeast – a Place-Based Project connecting community to schools
Sustainability is a term that seems to be everyone’s 21st Century goal. From Vieira (1993), the term sustainability identifies a concept and attitude in development that looks at a site’s land, water and energy resources as integral aspects of development. Another view of the sustainability is defined by Early (1993) as the integration of natural systems with human patterns that celebrate continuity, uniqueness and placemaking.
How can the concept of sustainability translate to broad education goals including positive growth in the areas of problem-solving skills, environmental citizenry, knowledge of community needs, support for innovation ideas, communication and leadership? The involvement of teachers and students in community initiatives has the potential to guide the growth of our learners toward their role as responsible adults. Place-based education projects connect schools and community through work that has public purpose for all participates, aligns with content standards already being taught in the classroom, and develops new and rich partnerships drawing on the strengths, attributes and resources of the community.
The “Green”House project was funded in 2010 through a NC State University grant from the Office of Extension, Engagement and Economic Development supporting the construction of the greenhouse, water systems, and classroom development initiatives. A timeline for development of partnerships for this project is below as well as a summary of the activities related to the project from the past year.
In addition to building the greenhouse at the Roanoke Cashie River Center site, the Green”House Project has several goals.
It is helpful to pause for refection when involved in a community school project such as the “Green”House project. At the end of our first year, we learned that it takes a consistent effort to keep the energy and interest going. Everything does not happen when you want it to happen. There will be roadblocks, and there will be discrepancies between expected outcomes and realistic performance. For this project, we struggled with construction delays due to bad weather and flooding. The teachers and students were committed and involved, but we had to work within the time constraints of traditional school schedules and content objective timelines. The effort was worth our time! We saw amazing things happen in the course of a year while we worked on this project with all of the community and school partners. See our “bragging book” (below) as we celebrate and share the excitement and pride we feel about our first year work.
Early, D. (1993). What is sustainable design? The Urban Ecologist. Ecology,Berkeley, Spring.
Vieria, R. (1993). A checklist for sustainable developments. A resource guide for building connections: Livable, sustainable communities. Washington, DC: American Institute of Architects.
This work by The Science House is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
The model 5E formatted lesson, Reflecting about Heat and Light, is a unit of study. It includes opportunities for authentic student design (through an engineering approach of build and redesign), scaffolded inquiry, data collection, collaboration, dissemination of knowledge learned, and technology integration. Each part of the 5E model can be extended or shortened to meet the needs of the classroom learner. Some students may need additional steps between sections to successfully complete the components of each “E”. For this lesson, one additional step recommended by the classroom teacher is the creation and testing of a greenhouse that captures the most heat – the next redesign will handle ways to decrease excessive heat build-up.
The model 5E formatted lesson, Pushing the Barrier, is a unit of study. It includes opportunities for concept development while addressing the content standards of passive and active cellular transport. Each part of the 5E model can be extended or shortened to meet the needs of the classroom learner. Some students may need additional steps between sections to successfully complete the components of each “E”. The cellular transport unit provides a window into the future, and encourages students to research and explore ways that we can manage earth’s resources to provide for the food, energy and comfort living requirements for the human population. As with any Place-based lesson, the community is key in helping to shape this unit of study. Farming communities have experts on run-off management, plant growers know exactly how to apply fertilizers without overkill and sometimes, plant explorers exist in your neighborhood with small hydroponic greenhouses. Go visit and talk to them!
The model 5E formatted lesson, Duplicating Nature or Not?, is a unit of study. It includes opportunities for authentic student inquiry while addressing the content standards of plant reproduction. Each part of the 5E model can be extended or shortened to meet the needs of the classroom learner. Some students may need additional steps between sections to successfully complete the components of each “E”. The plant propagation unit provides an excellent opportunity to work collaboratively with community experts (nursery owners, cooperative extension agents, etc). Since high school classrooms are often isolated by content, this unit also opens the door to working with the Agricultural Science teacher as well as the Business teacher. Students will explore the requirements of starting a plant business including the financial, legal, marketing and, of course, the scientific techniques of vegetative propagation.
The model 5E formatted lesson, Put the Puddle in the Barrel is a unit of study. It includes engineering design elements, conservation awareness, community interaction and opportunities to integrate mathematics into the science study. Each part of the 5E model can be extended or shortened to meet the needs of the classroom learner. Some students may need additional steps between sections to successfully complete the components of each “E”. The conservation of water unit encourages students and teachers to be a part of their community by providing a useful solution to water management. We were fortunate to have our place for rain barrel construction identified as necessary component of the “Green” House Project – students realized that rain barrels were essential, since no local water was available. You will have to look around in your community for rain barrel possible sites, and create some partnership opportunities. One of the teachers on this project is currently exploring an “entrepreneurship” idea to encourage high school students to build and sell rain barrels to homeowners at the local farmer’s market.