Behind The Scenes

Garden Club teen leaders were learning that student conflict could escalate quickly if it wasn’t handled early. They wisely requested training on the subject of student conflict management. Jen, who helped lead a team-building field day with the teens in the summer, returned to offer some advice, tips & tricks, and resources for how to handle conflict that might arise between Garden Club students. She offered valuable ideas and experience, emphasizing that, much of the time, students just want to feel heard in their conflict and feel like they are being treated fairly (just like grown-ups!). She suggested we create a “Popsicle jar,” a jar with Popsicle sticks inside with each student’s name written on it, and pull sticks when making groups, and offered other great resources like the “conflict resolution bridge.”

Garden Club: Pumpkins & Cabbage Worms

With Halloween approaching and the weather getting colder, Garden Club students enjoyed a “Fall Festival” day in the final Garden Club of October. Students took turns roasting marshmallows, discussing what makes an item flame-able or flame-retardant (if we soaked this marshmallow in water, would it catch on fire? Would the pumpkin catch on fire?), eventually agreeing that moisture and water content mattered when it comes to the age old game of catching-stuff-on-fire.

Every student had an opportunity to carve mini-pumpkins, some choosing scary faces, others going with a sillier route. While carefully tracing and carving, students discussed what would happen if we planted pumpkin seeds, stumbling upon the plant reproductive cycle (do ALL plants make seeds?). Green teens later remarked that we should have weighed the pumpkins before and after carving them to see how much the guts weighed.

In the High Tunnel, Garden Club students diligently picked cabbage worms off of cabbage plants and dropped them into buckets. One student’s comment on how “cabbage worms are the same exact color as cabbage leaves” made for great discussion about camouflage in nature. Students also discussed the cabbage worm life cycle, and it’s similarities and differences to that of a butterfly.

The following Tuesday, November 5th, one of our schools had the day off, so we only ended up with 2 Garden Club students! Nevertheless, the students enjoyed the company of no less than 6 garden grown-ups, making “cabbage worm terrariums” (and figuring out what they might need to live) and watering the high tunnel (cabbage worms, plants, and humans alike all need water!).