Academy of Agriculture and Environmental Resources

Re-starting the Blog, 7 weeks in

2009-10-06T11:24:00.003-04:00

AAER has been busy restarting all our projects, and beginning some new projects. This week students are working on Plant Science (structure, anatomy, and processes of plants). I will be using the blog more regularly as part of class, and posting the homework for parents and students. Plant science homework is the self evaluation (A, B, C, and D) at the end of unit 15 in the Agriscience textbook.

Students should also be working on their science project research paper first draft (2-3 pages), which is due on Wednesday. The website www.sciencebuddies.org is good resource and provides a guide on how to write the research paper.

Lastly, one of the new projects we are working on is a partnership with the Institute of Culinary Arts at Eastside High. Starting close to November, we will be selling them our fresh, organic produce for use in catering events and competitions. They are rated the #2 high school culinary arts program in the US!! They've won national competitions, so this will be a great partnership. Of course, produce will also be available to students, parents, and faculty. We also working with the Academy of Business Ownership and Marketing here at Loften to develop a business plan and ensure the profitability of the project. For our business plan, we need a mission statement for our business.... Students, please leave a comment with a nice one sentence mission statement for this business project. Use our school's mission statement: "Every student, every day - engaged and experience success!"

Fall News

2009-04-23T10:35:00.004-04:00

Here's a few pictures showing some of our Fall harvest. We went to the Farmer's Market for a few weeks in a row, and sold out of everything. We had lots of organic lettuce, broccoli, beets (red and golden), carrots (orange and purple), cabbage, napa cabbage, turnips, black radish, radish, mixed mustard greens, arugula, dino kale, kohlrabi, and more. We saved some cabbage which my Biotech students will process in saurkraut to learn about how beneficial bacteria are very important for certain foods and our health! As part of the same lab, they will make s yogurt and other fermented foods. This will be compared to canning, which uses a pressure cooker
to kill harmful bacteria and sterilize food so it can be stored at room temperature.

Farmer in Chief

2008-12-17T10:37:00.002-05:00

Great, long article on agricultural policy, by Michael Pollan:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html
The NY Magazine had a whole 'Food Issue' with some other great reads.

We'll be purchasing some copies of In Defense of Food, a book by Pollan, for class reading next semester.

Update

2008-12-12T09:22:00.002-05:00

It is almost Christmas break. We've been busy - we've moved from plant science, to crop science (nutrients and fertilization, irrigation, soil science, pests and pest control, spring vs fall crops, etc), and are now covering ecology. We are using some fantastic online material from Marietta College, of all places. This is their great ecology primer.
For the hands on, our fall garden is starting to be productive. We had our first homegrown, organic salad and, unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures. Next week I will take some - we'll be providing the cafeteria with gourmet lettuces all week. We should also have broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, beets, carrots, leeks, onions, and even more types of greens when we return from winter vacation. This year, we are doing some organic greenhouse production... growing cucumers, tomatoes, and bell peppers in the off season, when the prices increase. I hope to get the greenhouse certified organic before the end of next semester.
My classes also made lucky bamboo arrangements for the Foster Grandparents program, and floral centerpieces for Junior Achievement.

First 4 weeks

2008-09-17T06:56:00.003-04:00

Agriscience Foundations has just finished its unit on history. We started with hunters and gatherers (about 2.5 million years ago), talked about the beginning of agriculture (about 10,000 years ago), and the big steps since then that have made us such a successful agricultural society. We even delved into modern history - the world food crisis, peak oil, and GMOs.

Next, we will be covering the structure and anatomy of plants. This section is challenging because it involves so much serious biological vocabulary.

Meanwhile, for the hands on part of the class, we have refurbished the Butterfly and Ellen West Peace Gardens. We've also propagated some plants that we will sell at the nursery to raise funds, and begun planting out fall veggie seeds. Students are also working on a practice science experiment which will help them find the best way to take cuttings. This will help them get ready to do their science fair projects, which every student is required to do.

Three more weeks of summer...

2008-07-22T12:55:00.001-04:00

This was one of the harvests of bell pepper and eggplant! We'll definitely still be getting eggplant when school starts, but the bell pepper production will probably be pretty low by then....
There's also been baby corn, white patty pan squash, zuchinni, beans, and sweet corn.

We'll only plant a small amount of those spring veggies when school starts, so that we can focus on some serious fall veggie production! The portables have been removed from the school, which gives us a large are that we'll be turning into a low-maintenance wildflower meadow garden. Plus, there will be some space for a new herb garden that's closer to the new cafeteria!

Work day on Tuesday and some current events

2008-06-13T12:28:00.000-04:00

I got an email from Jewely a few days ago asking when she could stop by the school to help out a bit.... so our first summer work day will be Tuesday, the 17th. I'd like to start around 9am so we'll have a little time before it's crazily hot, but I can work around your schedules. Email me if/when you can come. I'll bring some refreshments. If it's raining, we'll have to reschedule.

There's bell peppers, eggplant, onions, and maybe a few other things you can take home with you.

Some current events:

Up to 20% of the Midwest's corn crop maybe be lost do to the unending rains and flooding they've had to deal with. That means 6 months to a year from now, there could be a pretty big shortage. As you know from class, the price of corn has already more than doubled over the past few years, which has contributed to a world food crisis. And we learned from King Corn that corn is the main livestock feed, as well as an ingredient in almost all processed foods. So low corn harvest this year could contribute significantly to increasing food prices. Sadly, this is a sign that the food crisis will be getting worse.
http://talkradionews.com/2008/06/iowa-flood-the-katrina-of-the-midwest/

Some more bad news... Contaminated tomatoes have been causing a Salmonella outbreak (not in FL!) Florida and California tomatoes currently being harvest have been cleared for consumption, though. The FDA is still pinpointing the cause and source of the contamination. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gTdemzWcpeDQ9QFeEyMaHk5U20GQD918PH600

Some up beat news you might need to cheer you up after those articles...
Some plants have a social life! They can tell who their relatives are.... or which plants they can take advantage of... http://earthfriendlygardening.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/plants-social-life/

FL is now home to the largest biomass pellet factory. But for some reason they're shipping a lot of their output to Europe...? Alachua County may be building a new biomass power plant.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/06/worlds-largest-biomass-plant-fla.php

Take care!

Yay thunderstorms!

2008-06-11T14:03:00.000-04:00

Well, yesterday I managed to cover crop the 1.5 acre future vegetable garden with sorghum. A few hours later, a thunderstorm started that flooded my garage. Bad for my garage, but great for the sorghum. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorghum to see what Sorghum is. Remember, the idea behind cover cropping is to prevent erosion, choke out weeds, improve soil texture and structure, and, most importantly, add organic matter.

There's a lot I'd like to accomplish here over the summer. I would like help from students - in addition to offering this opportunity for learning and doing 'the good work,' you can get volunteer hours and take home produce or plants as a bit of reward. So here's a quick list of goals so you can get an idea of what summer activities will be going on:

1. Clear, till, and cover crop more area around the 1.5 acre field and the nursery. (tractor driving!)
2. Find a way to use the 2" pipe near that field to irrigate cover crops when necessary.
3. Plant some things I didn't have time to plant before school ended (Jerusalem Thorn, Kumquats, some gingers / tropicals, alphonse karr bamboo...)
4. Harvest bell peppers, eggplant, cucumber, corn, and squash as they are ready.
5. Plant veggie crops that will be ready to harvest when school starts - that way we can continue local food Fridays the first week of school.
6. Plant seeds and propagate plants so we'll have a good stock to work with as soon as school starts in August.

New blog

2008-06-11T13:18:00.001-04:00

I'm working on a myspace and blog which will eventually actually contain exciting and thought provoking information. Or at least it will say what's going on with the Academy.