1. On your service learning project, where does it stand?
I emailed my group partner this week, trying to set up a time to do our service learning project. Since she hasn’t responded, I plan on doing it with my husband or a member of my family.
2. Where are you with planning it?
I haven’t contacted anyone yet, but I know that it is a casual enough setting where I could just show up if I wanted to. I don’t plan on doing that, so I will contact them this week.
3. What is your date?
I plan on doing it either this weekend or next weekend.
4. Are you prepared to do your service learning project…are you doing it as a group?
As I mentioned above, I was hoping to do it as a group. I don’t want to have to rely on someone else to complete this assignment, so I’m going to just do it on my own.
5. Which organization are you working with?
Green Meadows Organic Farm.
6. Who is your contact and what is the contact information so that I can contact them as well?
I used to work with someone who works there, named Scott, but I will probably email or call someone who is there on a daily basis.
7. If you tried one person, or one method, have you been trying new methods of contact or new people, or new organizations?
I will make sure I contact someone within the next few days, in case I have to do my service learning project elsewhere.
Each individual post in the blog post due this day (so if you are a group of three, it will be three individual’s perspectives in Nov 3 blog post :
1. A reconnection point with your topic. This includes looking into the topic a bit on any new news around it, or new action around it, and any new thoughts on the topic.
All of the news in agriculture this week revolved around corn, since it is harvest time for this American staple. Frost on the Corn Belt led to concerns about the wellbeing of the crops. The corn harvest had lowered this year, but the economic demand was lower as well, neutralizing the blow to farmers. We should expect a rise in corn prices coming up, as farmers compensate for the price of new technology.
2. After teaching, where do you think citizenship and getting involved in issues your students are interested in lies in the curriculum. Is there space? Would you as a teacher make space? How would you engage students in topics? How would you find out what they are interested in?
I would say, overall, that most people are probably less interested in agriculture than I am. People do seem to care about the food they put in their bodies, at least on some level, so the citizenship/service learning focus should be geared more toward the nutritional aspect of our eating habits.
I think there is plenty of room for this in a grade school curriculum, especially with the presence of a cafeteria, and possibly some sort of community garden on campus. Even students that bring a lunch can be involved. There is no limit to what you can do with food in the social studies classroom, since it is present in all areas of life. The real trick would be gaging student interest, because I wouldn’t want to come off sounding too academic with nutritional or agricultural study. Food should be enjoyed, plain and simple, and there is no reason they can’t enjoy healthy foods.
