EcoPower

December

Urban Arts/Eco Power Family Night—Over 200 people attended our family night on December 12th. We invited teachers, community center leaders and our board as well as the press.  We were able to meet with the youth board State Farm representative and give him a tour of our program. 
Our brand new microscopes are in the classroom and we are so excited.  Because of the warm weather we are able to still take water samples in our local pond and water drain off park.  The students love this and are enthralled by the creatures that live within our water samples. 
Sarah brought in water samples from the University of Minnesota for comparison of what clean water looks like and contaminated water samples.   We are testing everything!!!!!!

February March

February- Students from the University of Minnesota have been working with Urban Arts students for the last three month in the classroom teaching about water quality.  Sarah, Kate and Katie are helping us with our microscopes and we are now about to hook them up to the laptops so the whole class can see what we are looking at.  How cool is that?  We are melting snow to see if water samples change when they have been frozen and it any organisms stay alive through our Minnesota winter. 
Parents were invited to workshops Tuesday about building rain gardens at home.  We are talking about what kinds of plants would do best in Minnesota and if any poisonous.   Seeds will be started next month and families will be given plants for their own home gardens. We are creating prints with plants and exploring environmental arts.

Construction of the gardens are well underway. Urban Arts students are working with local preschoolers-direct seeding peas into the new garden beds and teaching them about growing food.  Students have done presentations about the cycles of seed growth and our brand new growing system is set up in the classroom.  We are planning on a load of composted manure this week to make sure our plants are well fed.
Students are growing kale, peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, basil as well as plants for the new rain garden.   We are also planning on using the growing system years round as a four-story herb and lettuce garden in the winter that will provide us fresh greens even when the snow falls.  We are visiting established rain gardens on Thursday at Bancroft Community Garden and Sabathini this week to see if we can recognize any of our seedlings all grown up.

April

We cannot believe how big our plants are.  The squash are taking over the classroom.  Students have worked with woodworker Kevin to rebuild the beds and lay down the new mulch walking paths.  We are direct seedling our lettuces and beets but are wary of frost.  Our big celebration is May 17th at 4:30 and everyone is invited.  We can't wait to show you everything we have grown and have salad from our very own growing center.  We are still learning about water quality and have brand new composting bins that students can spin to increase composting time.   Our new rain barrels are on their way to being installed in the garden.