Action Research Progress report for Week 5 EDLD 5326

Action Research Project Title: Developing and Using a Working School Garden to Meet our Campus’ Need for Experiential Learning
 Blog URL: http://alissadamore.blogspot.com/
 Number of AR Project Documented Hours: 20 hours + wait time for surveys to be completed by staff and parents (1 week each). Will be completing about 10 more hours in the next month with meetings and planning for the project with the Garden Committee.
 AR Project Summary (at least 250 words): My AR Project has dealt with determining the need for experiential learning on our campus, and coming up with a plan to meet it in order to increase student learning in the area of Science at the 5th grade level based on comparison of performance on state wide assessments from previous years and the next 3 school years. Since we only have up to 4th grade on our campus, our school is not responsible for Science scores, but our students head to the Intermediate where they will take the test, and it will count for our district as the only score in science since we only have one 5th grade campus. The lack of hands-on Science was determined through our Campus Leadership Team reviewing the CIP, and writing this need in at the beginning of this school year. We currently have a Science lab, but the team determined we needed even more experiences for our students if they were to be competitive and meet the qualifications for Learner of the Future in our school district. A small group of parents was already talking of starting the garden, so my principal paired me with them, and we have been planning ever since. It has been a long road, but an interesting one. We have done research into other local gardens: how were they funded, designed, used, and what kind of impact have they had on student learning? I have attended a North Dallas Garden Club meeting to hear the National Director of Real School Gardens speak. I have met with our parent representatives and my principal to discuss our plans, as well as email with them routinely to share new research data, products, interesting websites and other pertinent information to our campus starting a garden. We have also met with a local representative for Real School gardens 2 times to discuss how much their assistance will cost our school (we will have to “sponsor” an low-income campus to gain their assistance), what we need to do to begin our planning, and surveying our campus to see where our best locations for installation could be. I have also developed and completed two surveys through Survey Monkey, one for parents, the other for faculty, to determine interest levels in our school community for the garden. I surveyed the teachers on what kind of experience they had with a garden, how important they felt this kind of opportunity could be for their students, how they could use it, and if they would be willing to help with it. The parent survey was similar, but included more questions about how they would and could support the project: financially, construction, maintenance, training for teachers, corporate support, etc… . Both surveys came back with overwhelmingly positive results, especially the parent surveys (263 of them completed). Even the parents who were not sure how they felt, were still positive and willing to be open-minded. Their support is just as important as the teachers because they are going to be key stake-holders through funding and volunteering to keep it going and maintaining it as a major educational opportunity for our campus. Our PTA Executive Board will be meeting this next week to vote on the approval of the funding for the garden. We are hoping that we will be able to make a partnership with Real School Gardens, and come up with a way for us to be able to use them to help design and install our garden as well as train our parents and teachers in its use. If the funding is not approved, I may be revising my project, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that all goes well. Following the board meeting, our small garden Planning Committee is planning to meet with Scott from real School gardens again to complete our camus survey of the grounds,and get started with the design.