Tree Huggers In Need Of Your Help

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

I am currently a seventh grade middle school science teacher in a high needs area. My students are English Language Learners and they would benefit from an artificial grow lab in our classroom. They love hands on activities because they are fully engaged and motivated throughout their class session. But the students have no place to observe and manipulate their plant data and discoveries over an extended period of time. Having this grow lab would provide them with a real life application in the classroom. My students have to overcome many language barriers, learn the English language and required school concepts with little or no help from their parents. Their parents are unable to help them in the educational area due to lack of knowledge and understanding of the English language as well as knowledge of these science concepts. My students work hard and often support their mothers and fathers by running household errands and watching younger siblings. Unfortunately, another thing that my students have in common is that their families are struggling financially. Within my school the majority of the students qualify for the state's free or reduced meal program. Due to the budget cuts schools are facing, teachers in my school are no longer able to personally give each student the resources they desire. Supplying my students with this material would be a small step but it would give my students one less obstacle to overcome on their own. As part of the new science scope and sequence, students are required to understand the many ideas and concepts from all areas of science. Students are usually more successful academically when they are part of the learning process. Student-centered plant lab is a tool that I find effective for the science curriculum. Students in my classes are so excited to be able to grow plants! Within the middle school curriculum student learn about plant responses to various stimuli, but I have limited resources to have my students grow plants on a large enough scale to accommodate a truly valid experiment. This grow lab would allow me to incorporate plants into many lessons throughout the year. With this resource we can have plants in the classroom throughout the year. We can use these plants as tools for experiments on various topics, such as photosynthesis, plant hormones, and plant anatomy. The grow lab can and will allow the kids to see the living world before their very eyes and allow them to take ownership of a scientific investigation. With your help, I hope to provide an artificial plant growing environment for my English Language Learners. This will be a place to observe, discovery and manipulate record their plant studies.