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How might we ignite emotions of empathy in our students by engaging in an experience to design and create a well-being garden? Welcome, welcome! Are you ready to SPARK wonder and joy in your students and IGNITE your own understandings of how to teach empathy through experiential learning? Let's jump in and together find ways to answer the above guiding question as we build well-being gardens! Are you ready to get ON FIRE about learning? Let's go! |
A little inspiration from me to you before jumping in...
A primary focus of this experience is empathy---when we plan and create well-being gardens, we think not only about how the garden can affect us, but also about ways that others will enjoy it as well, and throughout this experience, we will be looking for opportunities to help our students make connections between gardens and relationships and empathy. Let's start building the fire with some inspirational SPARKS. Inspired by music? Here is a special playlist for you! Do visuals and quotes motivate you? Create your empathy image that can be printed and clipped to your planner or digitally downloaded to post on your computer desktop! Again, welcome! I am happy you are here! ☮️+💟 -- Jen
A primary focus of this experience is empathy---when we plan and create well-being gardens, we think not only about how the garden can affect us, but also about ways that others will enjoy it as well, and throughout this experience, we will be looking for opportunities to help our students make connections between gardens and relationships and empathy. Let's start building the fire with some inspirational SPARKS. Inspired by music? Here is a special playlist for you! Do visuals and quotes motivate you? Create your empathy image that can be printed and clipped to your planner or digitally downloaded to post on your computer desktop! Again, welcome! I am happy you are here! ☮️+💟 -- Jen
TimelineWeek 1: Inspiration Week 2: Ideation & Implementation User Research timeline: Oct-Nov: Dive into the Experience - the actual activities of the Experience could take 1-2 weeks, however we want to give plenty of time to make it work for your schedule. December: Follow-Up 1-hour conversation with us - we’d love to hear your feedback on the Experience, so that we can improve it. |
Grade LevelsThis experience is custom-designed for students and teachers in grades K-12. |
CONNECTIONS
Heart and Soul Connections
This experience is all about making connections and getting classrooms ON FIRE, and for us, the most important connection is between the learning and the hearts and souls of you and your students. Here are a few emotional responses that might arise from this experience. As we go through the next several weeks, I'd love to invite you to share on Slack or Twitter other emotional responses you feel in yourself and see in your students.
This experience is all about making connections and getting classrooms ON FIRE, and for us, the most important connection is between the learning and the hearts and souls of you and your students. Here are a few emotional responses that might arise from this experience. As we go through the next several weeks, I'd love to invite you to share on Slack or Twitter other emotional responses you feel in yourself and see in your students.
Enthusiasm
Compassion
Empathy
Self-Awareness
Metacognition
Perspective-Taking
Reflection
Compassion
Empathy
Self-Awareness
Metacognition
Perspective-Taking
Reflection
Academic Connections
Let's also consider connections between this experience and your curriculum. Here is a great ARTICLE on academic connections created during the process of making a school garden. There are many others that we will discover as we go, and we can continue to add to the ideas shared in our Slack group.
INTRODUCE YOURSELF
A big part of this experience is talking to other educators who are also trying out some of these ideas. Before getting started, let's get you set up with the tools below to communicate with each other. Click on each one to set up your account, introduce yourself, and get to know everyone else!
For more about why we chose these tools and how to get started, click here.
Use Twitter to share your experience with the world! Photos, resources, etc. Tag your posts with #ourwellbeinggarden to pull them into our feed. Use Participate to engage in chats.
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Use Slack for ongoing chats with this community: ideas, questions, advice, victories, and high fives.
Jump in and say hi! Click here for help on getting started. |
Use Flipgrid for reflecting and sharing excitement in video form. No need for an account.
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Use a Participate collection as a portfolio of all the amazing stuff you and your students do. More on this toward the end, but go ahead and set up a free Participate account now. |
Introduce yourself |
Share your empathy image |
Inspiration
Build Your Base
Read about the connection between well-being and plants. Depending on the grade level of your students, some of these resources/website could be student-friendly as well.
Read about the connection between well-being and plants. Depending on the grade level of your students, some of these resources/website could be student-friendly as well.
What is Well-Being?
Write the word well-being on a visible space and invite students to write all ideas they feel contribute to their own well-being by using sticky notes (feelings, emotions, activities). Find themes (consider creating mindmap or a 3D mindmap with yarn/string to connect ideas). Add ideas/themes to an anchor chart of Google doc to help make thinking visible for students. What does well-being have to do with a garden? Bring some plants and flowers to class. Pass them around the room, have your students touch them, feel them, smell them, etc. Ask them to pay attention to how they are feeling as they touch the plant. Introduce the idea of building a well-being garden with them. Ask students to think back to how they felt when they touched/smelled, etc. the plant(s) you brought to class, and connect this feeling to the reasons for a well-being garden. Openly share with your students and express your dedication to building a Well-Being Garden and have students share reasons why they feel this is important. Note: A well-being Garden need not be in an outdoor space---the primary focus is just a dedication of space, therefore it could be a outdoor garden, an indoor community area, or a corner in a classroom. |
Inspiration Walk
School campuses often offer beautiful spaces that are many times underused or overlooked. Invite students to prepare for their inspiration walk by intentionally thinking of the campus through a new lens. As you walk, encourage them to look at spaces they have perhaps seen before through a new perspective of creating a well-being garden for the entire school community to enjoy. Use personification and think of spaces that have been neglected and discuss that they may feel “sad” or “misunderstood.” After the walk, ask students to pick 1-2 areas they would like to consider for the Well-Being Garden. Thinking about that space now, ask them to complete the sentence: "If that space were a person, it would now feel ..." After the walk, find a space outdoors or in an open space of your building, and invite students to use clipboards, paper, and pencil to sketch their favorite space for a garden. Encourage them to add words and ideas as they come to mind. Remind them that this part of the process should be messy and unfinished. Provide time for students to share their ideas, and as a class, work to narrow down to one location. |
Collect Thoughts & Feelings
Return to the anchor chart/Google doc. Ask students to reflect on their list of ideas and begin to consider the location ideas. How might the individual locations allow for those identified feelings, emotions, and activities? As the final location idea becomes clear, ask students to consider what steps they will need to take to obtain permission to use the location. [e.g. administrator approval, etc.] and ways to make the space more accommodating for all to use. Make a collaborative step-by-step list. Get ready to start checking those boxes off! |
Share Thoughts & Ideas
What moments have inspired you during this phase? How do you feel? Click above & share your thoughts in our collaborative Flipgrid.
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Take some pics! Share photos of your mindmapped sticky notes at #ourwellbeinggarden on Twitter.
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Consider emotions and thoughts expressed by students as they described the spaces. Consider their choice of words and expressions of the ways spaces may “feel.”
How were the students empathizing with the spaces and with each other? Jot down student quotes or gather sound bites. Share in Slack. |
Ideation
Card Sort Create a collaborative list of items the students may want to see in the Well-Being Garden. What symbols of well-being would they want represented? (e.g. plants, potted flowers, water features, wind chimes, etc.) Why do they feel these are important? Encourage students to consider ALL senses in this phase. Ask students to select 4-6 of the items/objects that resonate most with them. Have students write words or draw images to represent the words using index cards or this TEMPLATE. Invite students to sort cards into any order that is logical in their minds and ask them to speak and elaborate on order. |
Telling the Story of the Space Through use of storyboarding [more on storyboarding HERE and HERE], invite students to consider what the “story of the space” could be. What is a scene they envision happening in the space? Have them interview other students on the subject and them incorporate other students' hopes for the space into the story (great empathy-building activity). Have students use paper/pencil and this template to tell the story of the Well-Being Garden. Allow time for students to tell their stories and engage in dialogue. |
Applying Knowledge As a class, diagram out the final plan for the Well-Being Garden. Draw to scale on a large piece of paper and use the “blueprint” to help guide creating a list of needs. Review the final list and ask students to ensure that all perspectives and requests from the anchor chart/doc (the whats and the whys) are represented or addressed. |
Share Thoughts & Ideas
What collective idea is igniting your class to move to the next level of implementation? How do you feel at this point? Share in the above Flipgrid!
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Share photos of the card sort & storyboards at #ourwellbeinggarden on Twitter!
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What connections are students creating between empathy & the garden? In what ways are they ON FIRE about learning? Share in Slack!
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Implementation
Making it Happen Prompt: How might we work to see the Well-Being Garden to completion? After hearing each others’ reasons for having a Reflection Garden, the students should be able to build compelling and emotional reasons they can use for raising any needed money. They could consider posting sound bites of their explanation of why the well-being garden is important to them, or to practice empathy, why it may be important to a classmate. Consider creative options for funding:
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Build a Garden. Build Empathy. As students work over time to build the well-being garden, continue to have them reflect on how the space can inspire and encourage the original concept of “well-being.” How are they feeling working together to build something for the class and school community? How can they apply the new learning to other areas of their life? Have them share their thoughts and ideas in this Flipgrid. |
Share Thoughts & Ideas
Share your voice! As you have observed your students, what have you noticed is new or enhanced in terms of empathetic behaviors? How do you feel?
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Creating a fund-raising campaign? Be sure to share on Twitter using #ourwellbeinggarden so we all can help to spread the word!
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Following an experience of finding connections between empathy through planning a well-being garden, what are other areas of your classroom that could be considered in terms of well-being and empathy? Share in Slack.
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Craft a story about this experience. This story can look like anything (video, blog, interpretive dance, etc), but think about the stories that catch other teachers on fire. These stories have the following in common:
- Visual: What did this actually look like in your classroom? Show us! Even the messy parts!
- Student Impact: Talk about your kids! Did they love it? What did they learn? How do you know? (Need help assessing this? Consider using a rubric like this.)
- Educator Impact: Be honest: how was this for you? What did you love? What made you super uncomfortable? What does this mean for you as a teacher moving forward?
- Real Voice: Be yourself and avoid eduspeak; jargon doesn't make anyone feel like they're on fire! How would you talk about this with your colleagues, family, and friends?
- Shareable: How will you get this out to the world and into the hands of people who need to hear this story?
What's next? I think you and your students would like these other Experiences: