Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: What do we still need to achieve?

35 minutes

Find Out: Planning

10 minutes

Take Action: Pitch your idea!

5 minutes

Reflection

Tune In: What do we still need to achieve?

Step 1

Students are to reflect on what they have achieved in the previous lesson and what their group still needs to achieve in this lesson.

Invite students to gather in their groups and consider the following questions:

What has been going well with this project?
For example, we are all on the same page and are making good gains towards our goals and objectives, or we are all happy with the plans and excited to keep going.

Encourage students to congratulate themselves on their achievements so far.

Step 2

Now ask groups to consider the following:

What challenges have arisen?
For example, some of our group members have been absent, or we have new group members, are running behind in our planning, have forgotten to do some of the tasks, or haven't included enough about regenerative agriculture in our plan.

Explain to students that project planning can be hard, especially when constrained by time and money. However, there's usually a solution to most problems and working together to find a solution is a good place to start. It could even be useful to team up with another group to share challenges and see how other groups have or would address these challenges.

Students are to troubleshoot any issues that have arisen before moving on to the next part of this lesson.

Find Out: Planning

Group task

Step 1

Students are to share feedback/discuss their findings with the group regarding communication, budgeting, costing and location. Each group should answer the following questions (also available on the Student Worksheet):

Are we on the same page?
What has each individual discovered about their part of the project?
What might they need to add, remove or change from their original plans?

If the project is going to be a reality, then emails are to be adjusted accordingly and sent to the relevant people asking for information, permission etc. If not, emails can be adjusted accordingly but not sent; instead, they can be kept for the group’s folio.

Step 2

From here, students are to work together to produce a plan (or series of plans if this works better for them) that shows:

A map of the location of the garden within their school, which includes:
- the sun's location and trajectory
- factors such as high traffic area on the way to the library, increased chances of litter build-up due to location to the canteen, increased chances of litter/ leaf build-up due to location and wind patterns in the area
A map of the garden itself that includes:
- what plants are to be planted where. Consider the height and width of the plants, the plants' needs with regard to sun and shelter, and plant aesthetics, purpose and diversity
A budget that includes:
- your ideal garden
- the garden that fits within your budget and how you came to the decisions that you did
A comprehensive list of all communication and replies (if applicable) regarding your garden
A comprehensive plan of how your garden is using regenerative gardening techniques to the best of its ability to maximise the garden’s potential.

Each student must think about how the individual work they did in the previous lesson would best be presented (for example, a text document or drawings or snippets of a spreadsheet).

The group must decide how all the individual and group work should be presented. For example, the plan for the garden could be presented as a series of documents, or it could be created online and created as a Padlet with images and documents uploaded to show student work.

Take Action: Pitch your ideas

Step 1

Invite students to imagine that only one garden in the class will be chosen to be created. Each group needs to create a pitch that communicates all the details of their plan.

The pitch should include the following (also available on the Student Worksheet):

information about the garden and why a regenerative garden is a great idea
what the garden will look like and where it will be (include a map!)
what are the costs for the garden
potential challenges and how these might be overcome
responsibilities for looking after the garden
who would benefit from the garden, and how would they benefit
how the design would help meet the challenges relating to climate change, food security and sustainability.

The pitch can be in the form of a presentation, a video, a poster, or any other communication form that students feel would be appropriate. The pitch will have a 3-minute time limit.

Students can use the Pitch fact sheet and the Pitch Rubric to guide the creation of their pitches.

Step 2

Once students have planned their pitches, they could rehearse and do a practice run for another group who can then provide feedback based on the rubric.

Reflection

Invite students to work independently to complete the following (also available on the Student Worksheet):

What do you think was great about your garden design?
What could be improved with your garden design?
What do you think about using regenerative farming principles in your garden? How will they make it better? What might be the challenges, and how would you overcome them?
Finally, write 100 words describing how you felt their group worked together, what worked, and what didn’t work and why.

Take it further

At this point you could continue onto the physical making of the garden the students have planned, depending upon your timescale and ability to create the garden.

Differentiated learning

We trust that teachers are the best equipped to know how to cater to the diversity in their classes. At Cool, we incorporate a variety of differentiation strategies into each lesson. Firstly, each lesson in this unit appeals to an array of different learning preferences. Learning activities can be completed in a number of different ways - if a student feels more comfortable speaking rather than writing, there are opportunities to accommodate this.

In lessons that feature group work or learning stations, we trust that teachers will use their discretion in knowing how to best organise their students in accordance with positive working relationships and ability. Graphic organisers and scaffolds are often included so students can ‘visually think’ and keep a record of their work. While our lessons are designed to be 55 - 60 minutes in length, we trust that teachers will manipulate lesson and segment times according to the needs of their students.

Planning a Regenerative Garden: Part B

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Summary

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