Seeding The Future Program [Re]Launch
The Sweet Water team is excited to announce the relaunch of its newest program, Seeding The Future, which was scheduled to launch in Spring 2020, but was paused due to the onset of COVID-19. In mid-February 2021, SWF began conducting weekly, virtual Urban Ecology lessons with 4th graders at neighborhood schools and distributed soil, seedlings, journals, and seeds to bring their lessons to life. Read on to learn more about the relaunch of Seeding the Future.
Seeding The Future is an Urban Ecology program engaging elementary students in hands-on, project-based learning experiences that follow the seed-to-table process and expose participants to a wide range of academic disciplines and essential life skills (e.g., biology, math, gardening, nutrition, etc.). Equally important, Seeding The Future Program seeks to connect students’ families and their school community to The Commonwealth, a community asset that grows fresh food, delivers arts and culture programming, and provides safe and healing spaces in the neighborhood.
In January of 2021, SWF reconnected with educators from neighborhood schools to relaunch the program virtually given continued restrictions on field lessons and in-person learning. With renewed energy, the SWF team and school educators modified the Seeding The Future lessons to a virtual setting and SWF Fellows created diagrams (above) to support each lesson.
SWF meets weekly during the students science class to cover lessons on water cycle, transpiration, plant life cycle, landforms, and basic plant cultivation and care. Through these weekly lessons, SWF has witnessed the students act as scientists as they participate in their own observations, data collection and analysis, and develop an understanding of their role in cultivation of life.
Each student who received their packet has planted their seeds and will soon witness their lettuce, peas, and basil seeds come to life!
SWF looks forward to welcoming educators, students, and their families to The Commonwealth in the not-so-distant future to fully experience the Seeding The Future program and is already preparing to deliver the full program onsite next school year.
