Category: Education

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Ground water – aquifers

When I first spoke to my friend Kreigh, who I swear is light years ahead in terms of understanding how our ecosystem works, and generally being gentle with how he uses things. Generally lives lightly, which is wonderful to see as an example. Anyway, speaking to Kreigh he would talk about water percolation tables, aquifers and regenerating water availability. I was just lost. full stop. LOST.

Recently, I started this soils class and it is all encompassing, it connects the dots between the biosphere and rhizosphere. This weeks assignment was learning how to use publicly available websites and data tables to understand trends going on with aquifers.

explore here: https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/qw

I’m still learning so take it with a grain of salt, but you’re able to look at data by map and constrain the data by county. The larger counties like Los Angeles and San Bernardino County will take a long time to load, so be patient. I gave up because I thought my computer was crashing.

It is super useful when making observations about the decrease of water in our aquifers nationwide, but also useful when it comes to seeing how closely our water and oil wells are interconnected. Living in Los Angeles, I often think of fracking as this abstract term that is bad. Well, because it is. What I need to do is make the connection that my electricity turns on due to the natural gases extracted from shale via fracking. How is that for getting you to turn off your lights. The other connection is that these wells are not lined with cement, plastics, magical dust that protects water. The interconnectedness of our planet is both beautiful and frightening. Look at wells so close to your water and let me know what you think.

Please leave your thoughts below, and let me know if you have questions. As I’d like to address them in future posts.

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unboxing

I’m taking a solid soils class at Pasadena City College with Dr. Vendrasco. Let’s start there. My friend Mel previously took this class and I was looking forward to signing up for it. The projects we’ve worked on have been distance projects since Covid has really halted most in-person classes, even some with labs have been impacted.

Dr. Vendrasco put these really sweet soil kits together for us, they’re just so precious. Am I nerd? a soil nerd? maybe, I mean I can aspire to be.

I guess if you start getting into plants, it depends how deep down the wormhole you want to go down. I took an oceanography class during the summer and really felt like the plate tectonics foundation was very useful when understanding origins of soils.

We have so many wonderful landscapes in the US and it’s nice to learn about some that may be a few states away but with a very different soil structure than what we’re used to in Southern California.

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Taking soil class at pcc

OK, so I signed up for a soils class – it was recommended by a friend and I’m in week 2 and I love it. If you have time next year around this time to take it, do it! The professor is kind and nurturing – which to be honest, has been my experience with all of my professors at Pasadena City College. I’m taking this class to learn how to heal some of the damage we have impacted on our urban soils, and to see how to maximize yields in a natural way that doesn’t add chemicals to the process. Here is cool video to watch and learn about cover crops.

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Garden in place workshop

The LA County Master Gardeners have been hosting a Tuesday morning workshop on gardening. Here is a video Diego and I worked on – good for understanding space and expectations of a toddler in the garden.

Often, we think that we’re going to have a beautiful garden, like those in magazines. Really, it’s a challenge to maintain a garden like that, and even more of challenge to have grown up expectations of kids.

Check this out and start feeding your curiosity – kids can garden, but we need to manage our expectations of what gardening will look like for them.

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BUILDING WITH APPLES

It’s Fall, and it’s finally cold enough to feel like Fall. Smart & Final and other grocers have an exceptional variety of apples. And, although eating apples and sampling is fun, I try to build out lessons that incorporate fun but also incorporate planning and spatial awareness. We decided to leave some apples out to try out our favorites, eating seasonally is great. Not only is is better for the environment but fruit just tastes better (and sweeter).

We had two guidelines for the assignment: 1. build something 2. work in a group and use constructive communication to get work done. Some groups struggled as some of the students wanted to build individually, some groups thrived because they were overly communicative. It was great to see the kids face challenges and address them, and solve and move on quickly. See the pictures below.

Apple Tasting
Teamwork - Building with Apples
Building with Apples at Rosewood
Apple Buildings
Journaling Apple Differences
Building with Apples – Construction
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Attempting Zero Waste at LAUSD school

I teach gardening education at a LAUSD school, and although everyone means well and wants to help, I’ve only had 2 parents volunteer. I think part of the challenge lies in wanting to help but not knowing how to get there. For instance, composting, where to start? we know where we need to end up but starting the collection and changing behavior is a completely different beast. It’s even harder when not all folks have the same desired goal to get it going – priorities are just different for some folks, unfortunately.

This week felt like a big win. I recently started the master gardener program and have been connecting with great people from different organizations. I came across Seeds of Hope and they work with other non-profits to get food into the hands of those who need it. Please check them out, they also grow their own food to supplement what they give out.

So back to organizing a campus… we set up a disassembly line at the lunch break. Breaking out food that is in good condition and can be donated, recyclable items, compost and waste. Previously, we trashed everything – now we are collecting the compostable food trays (which can also be recycled).

I asked the lunch manager for some help with ice, unfortunately we didn’t have any but he did me a true solid and handed me an insulated bag for food. I drove to Echo Park to drop it off and the group kindly accepted my donation. It would be nice to have a system to drop off the food. I must admit I cried from the sheer exhaustion of getting 10 people to work together in training kids. I hope this is the first of many days when we get to reduce food from the landfill into the hands of those who need it the most.

food donations to Seeds of Hope
legitimately documenting our donation
compost
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California Native Seed Planting – Changing Behavior

First thing we did when we bought our house was mulch – see here

And although I didn’t have a plan, I knew that we had to do something to conserve water in our Los Angeles suburb of Burbank. With drought after drought, we have to collectively change the way we look at grass. Easier said than done, since human behavior and convenience is one of the hardest things to change. Some of us look at grass as an antiquated relic of the idealized past, an image manipulated to create an oasis in California in order to lure east coasters. Beyond that, I see a lot of Latino families seeing grass as their manifestation of the American dream. Some folks worked hard, bought a home and grass is the physical representation of that.

I try to learn from others, and overall try to be less judgemental of others with how they choose to spend time, money, and effort but we must do more outside of our little zero-waste and conservation bubble. It’s an echo chamber of sorts and I would like to do more to outreach.

One organization that does a good job on education others on the benefits of natives, as they tie into water conservation is Theodore Payne Foundation link here

I’ve taken art classes there, bought seeds there and recently connected with an educator. I do think they fill a void, they don’t just sell items but they’re interested in selling plants that are colorful and don’t look like native weeds. They also lead by example, they have solar installed on their roof, their volunteers are knowledgeable, and they’re a non-profit.

Where I do have a gripe is the accessibility quotient. I do understand that natives take A LOOOOOONG time to grow, and herein lies the problem. The mark-up on these plants, the cost and the affordability doesn’t cater to anyone but the richest of Angelinos. Some of these plants are in the $18-$22 range and it’s hard for someone to shell out that much for a front yard overhaul.

My suggestion is to go for the seeds – start planting in the fall and see the results in late winter and early spring.

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Composting at an Elementary School

Over the last few months, I’ve been composting at Micheltorena Elementary.  I work as a school garden ranger, and people drop off compost. I turn the pile, get the kids involved and discuss nitrogen and carbon balance.

The hardest thing to accept has been, why won’t the school compost? I’ve been looking at the lunch menu and although not all the items can be broken down, some can be.

I often teach kids about growing our own food, permaculture, sustainability and zero-waste but all of that is pointless is we don’t teach by doing.

As of last week, I’ve been able to work hand-in-hand with the principal at this school to establish a small, 5-gallon compost bucket. Disclaimer, I work for Enrich LA, and this is an initiative for us as employees. My challenge isn’t the support, believe me I have it, but I need to figure out ways to get other people truly excited and engaged in this next endeavor.

I’m attaching a file, with my plans on what I intend to do, and what has been implemented –  in hopes that it will inspire you or inspire others to take the leap and compost at your neighborhood school.

We are in the implementation phase, so far we’ve collected a few pounds of organic waste. We’ve added it to the pile and used the paper plates (non-waxed) to balance the nitrogen and carbon.

I’ve included some pictures here, but the value is in the plan. Please credit me if you’d like to use it.

Signage from Enrich LA

current trash situation

without education, we end up with perfectly good food in the waste system and plastic in compost

Composting Plan for Elementary School

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Soil – Teaching Kids

One of the reasons we love our yard so much is that we can have pets, have a garden but also entertain our kid. While many complain about too much time online or watching TV, we’re happy we get to open the door and tell our kid to play with dirt. My job is also working with kids, working with EnrichLA and local elementary schools to teach, but lately I feel like I’ve been learning so much.

The kids I teach are young this time around, and the lessons aren’t really landing well, partially because definitions of soil are boring and the age of the kids. I often use my 2 year old as I test the lessons. If it doesn’t land well with a toddler, it’s not going to land well with a 4-5 year old who has a mind of their own.

I found this resource for soil here: https://www.soils4teachers.org/know-soil-know-life

I like to explain things to kids the way I would explain them to adults, meaning that I don’t want to dumb down a lesson thinking that children can’t understand, because they can. The definitions didn’t land, but the applied part did. We were able to play with soil, get the kids handling the dirt – and we even found a friend. We were able to go from basic soil composition to discussing soil as a habitat and ecosystem for critters.

This was one of my most challenging lessons, I will do things slightly different next time – perhaps have different types of soil on hand and match plants to the soil. Til next time.