Educators around the world are familiar with this new problem caused by the Covid-19 pandemic - how to keep students engaged via online lessons?
This is a problem we are facing ourselves as we transition our Garden Ranger Program to an online model. Our program, which relies on hands-on, outdoor activities to keep students engaged and learning, will now rely on video lessons to keep students connected to the garden.
This online program will consist of lessons catered either to K-2nd grade or 3rd-6th grade students. The lessons will be shorter, from about 5 to 10 minutes, and teachers will be able to use them as they best see fit. During this era of online learning, we are trying to make our lessons as simple as possible and as easy to use for our overburdened teachers. Each lesson will come with a simple lesson guide for teachers to use, significantly cutting down on prep time.
Featured in our garden videos is Ranger Alex, who has been with EnrichLA for over 5 years. As one of our most experience and loved Garden Rangers, we are excited to have her energy and knowledge included in our garden videos.
We know our online lessons will not be able to substitute the experience of students being outdoor in their school gardens, being able to touch and see the plants and flowers growing week after week. Nevertheless, we hope our online program will be a tool that our partner schools can use until we are able to resume in-person lessons.