Today wasn't a Grounded day really, it was an ADPSR day. And a very good one it was at that! We spent the whole day working with kids at the Betty Shabazz school here in Chicago. Thanks to our fellow collaborators, Black Oaks (www.blackoakscenter.org), we were invited to participate in the Earth Day celebrations at the school. We got to teach 3 groups of 5th through 8th graders why it's important to track and understand how the sun moves in the sky, and shadows move on the ground. We talked about the passive solar heating of buildings and how sun access affects the layout of a garden. It was fun getting the kids to participate in little informative demonstrations - marking shadow movements with sidewalk chalk over the course of the day - going inside into the dark and using a flashlight to simulate the sun moving across the sky - finding out what their favorite vegetables are to see where to plant 'em. After all that, they laid out tires, railroad ties and mulch to start the work on their own school garden (facing mostly South of course). Granted, this picture of a buncha tires doesn't quite capture the energy of the day (and man do those kids have energy!), but I wanna make sure it's ok with the school before we post any of the great photos we have of the real action.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Earth Day
Today wasn't a Grounded day really, it was an ADPSR day. And a very good one it was at that! We spent the whole day working with kids at the Betty Shabazz school here in Chicago. Thanks to our fellow collaborators, Black Oaks (www.blackoakscenter.org), we were invited to participate in the Earth Day celebrations at the school. We got to teach 3 groups of 5th through 8th graders why it's important to track and understand how the sun moves in the sky, and shadows move on the ground. We talked about the passive solar heating of buildings and how sun access affects the layout of a garden. It was fun getting the kids to participate in little informative demonstrations - marking shadow movements with sidewalk chalk over the course of the day - going inside into the dark and using a flashlight to simulate the sun moving across the sky - finding out what their favorite vegetables are to see where to plant 'em. After all that, they laid out tires, railroad ties and mulch to start the work on their own school garden (facing mostly South of course). Granted, this picture of a buncha tires doesn't quite capture the energy of the day (and man do those kids have energy!), but I wanna make sure it's ok with the school before we post any of the great photos we have of the real action.
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When can you come over and teach ME all that stuff? I pretty much just arranged my garden so that it was comfortable to weed.
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