Monthly Archives: May 2020

Where the Green(ish) Grass Grows- Week 2

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This week was a productive one! I have been having a lot of fun trying to find online resources for the projects I want to accomplish in the yard, while also trying to not spend a lot of money. Sometimes this meant getting a little creative!

There was finally some warm weather this week, so advantage of it and started off by planting some flowers in outdoor pots. I had four pots in total to fill, two for the front of the house and two for the back deck. The front of my house is south facing, so we get full sun all day long, where as the back is shadowed by the house, so I needed to find plants that could survive in both of these conditions. I checked out Kwan’s Greenhouse located in Swift Current (check out their Facebook page here), where I actually worked for a summer a few years ago. I know the owners well and they are extremely knowledgable! They helped me pick out six full sun plants and six shade plants. Both of my grandmas are also amazing gardeners so I asked for their advice. When it came time to plant, I felt I should have asked more questions! My first two pots were very slow. I had only filled the pots about a third of the way full with soil because I figured it would be easier to put dirt around the plants once they were in place. This was a big mistake. It was not at all easier to put dirt around the plants, and I mostly just ended up with dirt everywhere. I filled my last two pots with soil to the brim and instead just dug a small hole and plopped the plants right in. It was a much easier process and took way less time!

I also took some time this week to try and figure out what the trees and shrubs that already existed in my backyard were. I stumbled upon an app called VTree which was available for free on the IOS App-store (and possibly on Android as well? I haven’t checked!). It was created by Virginia Tech and has information for trees and shrubs all across North America. It used my location to create a quiz I could put some quick details into and it was able to figure out what some of the trees in my backyard were. It was an amazing find! Two identical shrubs in my backyard still remain a mystery though, but they will hopefully be easier to identify once they grow some leaves.

This week I also built some garden boxes that I want to go along the back fence of the backyard. I found this blog which had exactly what I was looking for along with some amazing tips and easy to follow instructions with pictures, and I followed it very closely! This process went much easier than I thought it would and didn’t take very long at all, although I definitely needed help from my boyfriend for this project. We still have another box to make and they still need to be stained and sealed before they can be put in place.

The nice weather this week gave me a short window to prep and stain the area of fence I’d like the planter boxes to go along. I started by power washing (or pressure washing? Both terms seem to be used commonly) the fence. This video had a ton of great information. I had a minor malfunction with the pressure washer I used (which I borrowed from my dad) so it took a bit of time to sort out. Overall the difference in the fence was huge! I let the fence dry for a few days and then it was time to finally stain it. When we moved into our house, we painted the entire interior, but I had a feeling this might be a bit different. I initially had a tough time finding any resources that used a paint brush to apply the stain instead of using an air-sprayer. Eventually I found this article which offered me a few helpful tips. This was a big project, so I’m a little worried to tackle the rest of the fence and deck, but I know it will be worth it! I am still thinking I will apply a sealer on the fence to help my hard work last a bit longer, but I ran out of time this week.

Check out my video below to see what I all accomplished this week!

Education of the Future

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I have spent a lot of time thinking about what is currently happening in our society. A lot of fear and anxiety has sprung up when I contemplate Covid-19 and the short term affects it has had. However, I feel as though I’ve been so consumed with whats happening now that I haven’t spent a ton of time thinking about the longterm future. There is so much uncertainty with what teaching and learning will look like in the fall, and even more when we consider what it might look like 5 years from now.

I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by educators in my personal life. My boyfriend is a teacher, several of my close friends are teachers and admin, and my mom has worked most of my life in an elementary school as a counsellor and social worker. As a student myself I am also affected. It feels like a scary time when no one seems to have the answers about what the future might look like!

I think teaching and learning this fall will look very different to anything we have experienced in the past. There are a lot of different ways that teaching and learning can resume; delayed or staggered starts, completely online, alternating days or even none of the above. I think if anything positive comes from this it will be a push towards technological communication and learning that sometimes is lagging behind in the prairies of Canada, and I think those advancements will be important and here to stay in the long term future of our society. However, one of the biggest challenges that I think will come from this shift to online learning is a lack of engagement. How can we build and foster a school culture if we can’t have school activities? How will teachers connect with the new students in their class if they can only interact online? How will students create relationships with one another? Will students look back fondly over the unique circumstances they were put in or will they feel robbed of school experiences?

Truthfully I don’t have the answers for those questions, and unfortunately I don’t think others do either. It’s a complicated issue. There are challenges that each learning group will face, but also advantages. Younger students will likely be able to adapt more easily. They are already learning through technology in a completely different scope than most of us have experienced. However younger students also need more assistance in their learning which may unfortunately fall on parents, some of whom will not pick up the slack. Older students are learning valuable independence skills that they will use for the rest of their life, and they are more capable of doing so. But as I mentioned above, they are also being cheated out of experiences that are equally important to their development. Students across the board may be missing that social learning piece if there is no way to replicate it in an online community.

One important learning opportunity that will come from these changing times is authentic learning. While I’m sure there are some students who have been sitting at home and playing video games, there are also tons of others who are participating in their world in a way they might not have before. Farm kids might be out helping on the farm more than ever. Other’s may be learning how to cook or bake for the first time. They might be connecting with their families, learning how to keep their room’s clean, and helping the adults in their lives in ways they couldn’t previously. There are of course many wonderful skills that learners can be experiencing beyond the classroom, and now is the greatest time to do so. These are skills they will be using for the rest of their lives. So many student’s struggle with that leap from highschool to university (myself included). Maybe this is an opportunity for children to gain an understanding of how to learn more independently.

This is also a great time for teachers to adapt. Lessons may need to be more skill related. Students may need more freedom and choice in their assignments, and especially in how they present their learning. Parent’s are more engaged in the learning process than they have ever been. Through supporting their child and connecting with their children’s teachers, they are more aware of the day to day, and seem to feel more of an obligation to be involved in their child’s learning. While there will certainly be some far reaching consequences of this time in history, I am also optimistic that a lot of good can come as well, if we embrace it.