Cultivating Communities & Curiosity - November Wrap-Up
Beyond creating outdoor classrooms at elementary schools across Cambridge and Boston public schools, CitySprouts also extends the opportunity for middle school-aged youth to continue exploring science outside. The Young Leaders Program (YLP) runs year-round after school Youth Leadership Team projects and 5-week summer sessions in East Cambridge Dorchester, and Roxbury. YLP is CitySprouts’ answer to the challenge of keeping kids engaged, inquisitive, and excited about science and outdoor exploration beyond early childhood.
The Young Leaders Program’s goals are twofold: to keep teenagers’ child-like wonder for exploring the natural world around them alive and to shift their focus to enacting positive change within their local communities. YLP teams get the opportunity to further explore environmental science on their own terms, and they directly connect with our urban farm partners in their neighborhoods. Youth participants work with the farmers to learn about agricultural science and what it takes to run a local business first-hand, all while developing leadership skills.
The Roxbury Youth Leadership Team observing kale at the West Cottage Farm, November 2021
“…It was impossible for 5 minutes to pass without a serendipitous learning opportunity.”
Across the river, the Roxbury Youth Leadership Team shares a similar familiarity with the sprawling West Cottage Farm. This week, Garden Educator Karl brought homemade roasted pumpkin seeds the youth had been able to harvest earlier in the month, and a snail bin. The youth “observed” the snails and collectively agreed to name them Fido and Speedy respectively. After an opening circle that may have included a discussion about the evolutionary advantages of various Pokémon types, youth got to work transferring a recently delivered wood chip pile to be used for compost. What some may consider to be simply hard labor became a fun challenge due to the gamification element Karl added into the mix: Snickers as a reward. Shoveling the compostable matter under a time limit suddenly made much-needed work for the farm fly by.
Youth certainly are helping out within their community gardens, but what are they learning beyond the tasks they’re completing for the farm managers? While observing the after school YLT clubs, I noticed that it was impossible for 5 minutes to pass without a serendipitous learning opportunity. If a student opens with “Karl, I saw bird bones at the entrance of the farm,” their curiosity is cultivated. While a traditional classroom setting may not allow ample time to entertain the plethora of questions students justifiably have, the Youth Leadership Team club prioritizes the interests of the youth by creating lesson plans that are inclusive and flexible. Oftentimes, youth are actually asked directly which activities they want to participate in.
Integrating service work with STEM education is seamless within the Young Leaders Program. The Youth Leadership Team based in East Cambridge at Green Cambridge’s Hurley Street Neighborhood Farm, for instance, was tasked with performing critical soil tests on the site’s 11 garden beds last week and interpreting the results. As winter approaches and our fall harvest season comes to an end, local farmers must gather data on the quality of their soil so that they can appropriately plan which crops to rotate in and out of which beds.
Gathering data on the acidity (pH levels) and nutrient composition (phosphorous, potash, and nitrogen) of the beds sounds arduous, but it was no problem for the youth! Once Garden Educator Heather announced their assignment for the day, they effectively divided up the beds amongst themselves and quickly dispersed throughout the garden to gather samples for each of their four different soil testing kits. While analyzing soil nutrients may seem foreign to most teenagers, it was a piece of cake for the youth since they had been working together as a team at this particular farm for months, and for some, even years.
The East Cambridge Youth Leadership Team recording their soil tests’ results at the Hurley Street Farm, November 2021
The Young Leaders Program is not only intended to provide science-based and developmental learning opportunities for middle school students across Cambridge and Boston - it’s also fun! Just like any other extracurricular activity, the consistency and small group setting of YLT is a great way for youth to develop friendships with their peers and see the Garden Educators as mentors. Opening and closing circles at every YLT session provide an opportunity for every student to contribute their thoughts and ideas into future lessons, or simply to talk about their favorite Halloween candy.
Once the East Cambridge youth recorded their soil testing results on paper, Heather announced that they were going to spray paint fresh new yardsticks for the garden beds. With a wide variety of colors and artistic encouragement from Heather, youth designed dozens of customized yardsticks to be put into the beds they will be taking care of throughout the school year. Giving students time to couple their interest in science with other activities, like art, keeps learning fun and dynamic.
Finally, students’ hard work and dedication does bear fruit - literally! Community farm management comes with the sweet reward of fresh produce that the teams grow and then eat. While one youth may shut down the prospect of trying kale by declaring that it is “too bitter,” Garden Educator Karl can quickly change their minds by explaining that kale, especially in the winter time, can sweeten with frost, an adaptive property that prevents its leaves from wilting in the harsh New England winter.
The Roxbury Youth Leadership Team hard at work at the West Cottage Farm, November 2021
Heather enjoys making freshly spiced popcorn with her family’s popcorn maker and encouraging her youth to experiment with spices from the garden. While some tend to opt for a sugary, kettle corn flavor, others enjoy mixing the savory flavors of rosemary and thyme on their popped kernels. Exploring spices in the wild, which most kids only observe within their family spice cabinet, often culminates into a competition among the youth, where they challenge one another by analyzing whose popcorn mix-in combination has the best flavor profile.
Watching Garden Educators chomp on freshly pulled carrots or tear off a piece of thai basil encourages students to open up their food palate to healthy produce they may have never heard of before and it motivates them to use their senses to explore the outdoor classroom around them. “Hands-off” suddenly becomes “hands-on.”
The East Cambridge Youth Leadership Team decorating yard sticks at the Hurley Street Farm, November 2021
The Young Leaders Program provides youth an opportunity to grow wonder, curiosity, and community in a unique setting: an urban farm. While young people today face many challenges in these uncertain times, with CitySprouts they learn and lead, claiming a space where they can freely explore and inquire about the natural world without the limitations of a traditional classroom setting.