Strategies For A Graceful Dismount

Weekly objectives and achievements:

Moment of Significant Change

Knowledge

The general consensus in our group is that our knowledge has collectively increased over the course of this semester. Although the purpose and goals of this project seemed hazy at first, going on the school tours solidified the spirit of the Indigenous Foodscapes. We were able to visualize Farm to School’s vision in the real spaces it was meant for, alongside the people who would bring the vision to life. There was so much information to take in from each tour that what we have learned has crept into each group conversation we have had since.

Our notes from one of the school tours (at Queen Mary Elementary, taken by James) turned out to be quite dense and can be seen in the attached document at the end of this post.

Our second community partners’ meeting at the Vancouver School Board allowed us to gather feedback from Lori, Sam, and other members who were also a part of the Indigenous Foodscapes working group. Through this meeting, we were able to gather the details of the report they were looking for. Sam’s cooperation and willingness to create a template so that our reports could be uniform and clear was greatly appreciated by each group.

It was good to learn that our idea for the interactive map was very well received, especially because of its potential to serve as a teaching tool for teachers once the gardens are up and running. However, we were also reminded that the most important teaching tool should be the gardens themselves and the hands-on experience they provide. This project has taught us that we all have an innate curiosity for the environment around us, and the Indigenous Foodscapes project is a way for teachers to utilize this asset to facilitate learning among their students.

Skills

We have learned how to collaborate and communicate as a team. Our team dynamic has improved over the last several weeks as we have figured out how to complete each task efficiently. We have learned how to play to each other’s strengths and choose tasks that emphasize them.

We have all contributed to each component of this project, the major tasks of which are the writing elements. However, we have also delegated tasks according to our interests and skills: Jiaying has taken on the design and posting aspects of our blog, Odette has pushed us to integrate each week’s readings into our experiences and reflections, James has taken copious notes from the school tour and organized them so they are easy to read, Anna-Joy has overseen editing the content of our posts, and Carolina graciously took the lead on our idea for an interactive website. Her perseverance and determination were evident as she had to figure everything out from scratch.

Here are some of Carolina’s thoughts on her experience:

I have had a significant increase in my learning curve for this course, particularly in skills regarding software. When Sam (our community partner) told us she wanted a “multimedia document to present the information,” I immediately started thinking about an interactive web-page. The sketch we came up with was fantastic, but there was a major gap: none of us actually knew how to create it. My next thought was, “how hard can it be?”

Well, it turned out to be harder than hard. It was frustrating and confusing… I spent hours trying to learn basic coding in order to come somewhat close to the idea I had for the web page. After a lot of trial and error, I finally did it! I learned how to create an interactive web page.

Emotional

When we talked about the progress of our respective emotional states, there were two contrasting perspectives in our group. Some of us were really feeling the burn out with midterms and other assignments crowding our schedule, and the other half of us were increasingly optimistic as the end of the project started to be more concrete and achievable. As promised at the beginning of the semester, the entire project experience has been filled with uncertainty and constant change. Our ideas have come up, been shut down, and then revived again. It was reassuring to know throughout the process that what we were feeling was normal and was experienced by many other groups from semesters past.

Another emotion that we shared throughout the semester was a sense of gratitude. We each expressed gratefulness for this opportunity and everything we were able to learn about the plants themselves but also the structure of a long-term project like this one. There was also a general sense of gratitude for the environment we live in and often take for granted, especially for the diversity of plants within it and the ways it has evolved as we have developed as a civilization. We were also inspired by the teachers’ attitudes to give up their time for this project and the excitement and passion they brought to it.

Lastly, at the VSB meeting on March 5th, the interest that Sam, Lori, and other members of the IF working group showed in our work served to validate the effort and thought we had put into this project, especially over the last several weeks.

Our Strategies for Successful Project Completion:

1.Specialization 

One of our strategies is to take advantage of each team member’s specializations while always keeping in mind that we are working as a team. Each of us has our own talents along with our own interests, hence a diversity of majors in our group. For example, Carolina is interested in Global (Educational) Resource Systems and so she contributed a lot to creating the Interactive map of 2 schools we visited (See our sample website by clicking here). During the tour at Queen Mary Elementary, Anna-Joy volunteered to take pictures of the plants and the school grounds. All of these pictures are/will be used in our blog posts, infographic, and final report. James is very curious and knowledgeable about various plants and soil. He took very detailed notes during the school tour, which are extremely useful for our report and the interactive website. Jiaying has taken the responsibility of editing and posting the group blogs while keeping the group on track with by reminding us of various due dates. Odette’s interest in the sharing of knowledge has sparked many creative ideas throughout the process of putting the project together as she has actively worked to make the readings relevant to our experience.

2. Equal Contributions

Another important strategy to the success we have used throughout the semester is to make sure each team member contributes about the same. No matter what we are specialized in, we have all contributed to the group work.

3. Set Specific Due Dates for Group Work

Setting specific due dates and meeting times according to our weekly objectives has proved to be vital for successfully completing our project. For example, for the third blog post due on March 11th, we started brainstorming the content and delegating the respective written portions during a meeting on March 2nd. We also planned to have all the content finished by March 9th, then edited on March 10th so the entry would be readily posted on March 11th. As that meeting was also before we met our community partners for the second time at the VSB, we assigned specific tasks in preparation for our draft report presentation (eg: James and Carolina agreed to complete the sample of our interactive website).

4. Maintain constant communication with all group members

At the beginning of the semester, we all agreed that we had to respond or acknowledged that we had received each other’s messages within 24 hours. This system has kept us accountable to each other and resulted in constant communication among all group members (whether it be by email, text, or a group chat). It has also helped to keep us all on the same page during the completion of various individual tasks. It has helped us to avoid doing unnecessary work if one team member has agreed to take charge of a specific task. It has also allowed us to remind each other of upcoming due dates and deadlines. This has been vital to our punctual and consistent completion of each project objective we have set.

As the end of the term approaches, we will continue to implement all of these strategies while looking forward to the successful completion of our project!

Upcoming Objectives:

1. (Week 10) We will find a great Infographic template and all work together on creating one by considering feedback from Lori and Sam on March 5th.
2. (Week 11) We will finalize our amazing Infographic.
3. (Week 12) We will practice our presentation a couple of times before the final presentation.
4. (Week 13) We will report all relevant information, specifically on the assets of each school and their future needs. We will also reflect on our school visit experiences and the progress of our project on the Final Report.

Appendix:

1. Our sample Interactive map on our website https://caroduque7.wixsite.com/sample-lfs
2. James’ notes https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kyZ1O9biECUXEe2I4BRrYoG2Xg6NGEJlsbV_N-pvR-8/edit?usp=sharing