Independent Learning Project week 3

Hi everyone,

You might remember that I decided on the following;

I will spend 4 hours each week for the next 7 weeks in pursuit of discovering more on Passion Based Learning.

• I would like to have a Sailing 101 Lesson
• I would like to experience life inside of a Muslim Mosque
• Learn how to build a rock retaining wall (landscape)
• Study 1-2 separate stories that are in the bible
• Visit 2 museum’s any that are in my location
• Spend 4 hours learning about horse racing
• Leave 2 weeks open to learn about a new discovery I have made while on this journey.

These are not in order and I would like to also leave room for adjustments due to weather or health.

This week was the week for tree planting.  I hope that one day I will help my students plant a tree as a way to give back to nature.

Here is what I learned when my helpful husband and I planted a Red Maple (the image below will be our reward in 10 years).

 

Photo by

First we visited Earl May a gardening store.  We spent time on the web site and than visited the brick an mortar store where we purchased the tree & related items that were needed.

 

 

Clearing the planting site was the most difficult part of the lesson.  Difficult meaning time absorbing and physically demanding.

Planning for growth over the next 5-10 years required measuring the land space and lots of idea sharing.  I like this part because it reminded me that my future students will need to work together as a team.

The tree required a hole that was about 2ft deep and 3ft wide.  I think that a hole this size can easily be dug by students.

Once the site was prepared taking the tree from the pot to the hole was very simple.  The tree’s roots needed to be loosed prior to putting the tree in place.  This was done with a straight edge.  We sliced  the edges of the compacted root system with a straight edge every inch or so all the way around it. Set it in place and covered it with dirt.

Once that was done we realized that we had forgotten one thing, the mulch!

Another trip to the store was required along with some lunch.  I did not mention above that we started this project around 8:00am and finished around 2:30pm.

I learned that when I do this project with students, we will need to assign jobs.  Jobs include – The Diggers, The Haulers, The Site Safety Manager (in this lesson that was my helpful husband), The Food & Beverage providers, The Shoppers, and Cleaning Crew.