Lesson plan – Everyone can garden

In this part, we will introduce some action plan to apply the topic “Gardening – easy or not” into educational activities using the above methods. Trainers and teachers can change the plan according to their participants and condition.

Globalization has risen the inter-dependence of human on every aspect of life and food is the most obvious example. Many years ago, and still now, in some developing regions, self-sufficient organic agriculture with a wide range of native varieties is the common cultivation. However, with the increase of population and development of technology as well as transportation, these models have been changed dramatically. To feed the large scale monoculture agriculture, agricultural corporation, with subsidizes from the government, lower food price to the point that small farmers can not earn enough money for a living. Most of food in developed countries were produced in other places with lower labour and land cost. Mono-culture agriculture with the overuse of pesticides and chemical fertilizers not only sacrifices soil quality, food safety and justice of producers but also creates a disconnection between us and our food. We do not know where our food comes from, how it was planted. Many young people do not know how different types of vegetable, herbs and fruit look like in nature. If in any case you have to grow your own food for survival, can you do it? 14

In-door lesson plan

This is a lesson plan can be used in the class to introduce to participants about the concept and best practices of urban gardening.

Class’s objective

• Participants understand what urban gardening is and some basic types of it • Participants have basic knowledge of common models of urban gardening • Participants have motivation to start a garden or do gardening when they come Methodology: Lesson plan with visual aids and experiential activity Duration: 90 minutes

NO CONTENT DURA TION DETAILS PREPARATION

1 Warm up 5-10 minutes Game: what have you eaten last week? How: sketching • Painting pens • Re-used 1 side A4

papers

NO CONTENT DURA TION -

2 The

context: The food

you eat 20 minutes

3 Solution 45 minutes

4 Summary 10 minutes - Share stories of food – personal experience - Show video: (1) Unsanitary food in Vietnam (2) Urban organic gardening model - Discussion: how do you feel after watching the videos, have you learnt anything new? - Break into groups, discuss about solutions they can do. - Trainers give them more suggestion on actions - Challenge: make a vertical garden from reused bottles • Projector • Screen • Videos

- Stationary - Slides to introduce more actions and models - Guide to make vertical garden

- Summarize main points - Summarize action plan of participants

References: Project Getgreen Vietnam – Topic “Live like a farmer in the city” Link: http://getgreen.vn/cam-nang-song-xanh/la-mot-ta-dien-thanh-thi/17

Practice lesson

This lesson will bring participants an experience of growing their own food. The objective is for them to be able to prepare a meal from ingredients they grow themselves. This will give a realistic awareness of the time and effort needed for food production. Methodology: Experiential activity, can be done in groups Duration: 30 minutes to practice and 8 weeks wait for harvest

Class’s objective

• Participants connect to where food comes from • Participants have the experience of growing their own food • Participants understand the benefit of multi-crop farming

Guidance

Tools and materials: • Seeds (or starter) of the plants you want to grow (can use the vegetable you usually eat) • Pots or boxes to plant