Resources:
Sarah Rigg's Feature Article: Ypsi schools’ new agriscience/botany program has students developing green thumbs
Ypsilanti Community High School
Transcription:
Lee Van Roth: You're listening to 89.1 WEMU. I'm Lee Van Roth, and this is On the Ground Ypsi. Today, we are talking about a program that's literally transforming the landscape around Ypsilanti Community Schools, sometimes one sweet potato or pawpaw tree at a time. YCS has launched a new agriscience and botany career technical education program, part of a countywide push to expand hands-on learning opportunities for students. From planting an orchard near the district's administration building to turning microscope images into postcards for a fundraiser, this program is giving students real-world experience with plants, ecology, and the emerging world of green jobs. With me today is the biology teacher at the heart of it all, Laurel Wiinikka-Buesser, the educator who helped grow the Garden Club into a full-fledged, CTE pathway. Laurel, welcome! It is so great to have you here!
Laurel Wiinikka-Buesser: Hello! Thank you for having me! It's an honor to be here!
Lee Van Roth: I would love to just start at the beginning. When you first started with YCS, this botany CTE program was in discussion and in development. What made you so excited about that prospect that you needed to jump in and help to the build it into what it is?
Laurel Wiinikka-Buesser: Yeah. So, I was really excited to teach botany. I knew I would be teaching it when I was first hired, but I didn't realize initially that they wanted to develop it into a CTE. But I always see how much the hands-on work really works for the kids. They learn so much more when they're doing things along with the academic content. And so, the opportunity to develop it into a CTE where they would also get credentials and could be career-ready or go off into further education in the field just sounded too good to pass up. And so, with a lot of support from a lot of wonderful people, I started building curriculum and developing the CTE.
Lee Van Roth: And this kind of launches from a garden club at the school as well. And I'm wondering how the, maybe, experiences or conversations that you're having with students in the club or students that are just having these conversations within the club, how did those kind of shape the way the curriculum was developed?
Laurel Wiinikka-Buesser: Yeah. So, the very first semester, I had a garden club. And I think seeing the things that they gravitated towards and like actually surveying them about what they were most interested in really helped build the direction of the course. So, they were the ones who were most interested in an orchard. So, I really think that having students provide a lot of input and autonomy is really important for education in general, but it really helped build the course. So, like, a lot of the surveys and my sense of their interests helped me design the directions of the course, like doing a lot of work with fruit trees and building an orchard, taking it in the direction of food justice. There's also been a really influential mentor, Paula Sizemore. She used to be the botany teacher. She started this program. And so, she helped mentor me as I was starting out in my career and in this specific role through semis. She's been really wonderful!
Lee Van Roth: And you had mentioned how these hands-on experiences often help students retain the information better and be more excited about the learning aspect of it. What do you see come spring or even fall next the next school semester or next school year? What do you see these students gaining from this kind of combination of traditional classroom experience as well as being outside and actively planting and working with world and earth around them?
Laurel Wiinikka-Buesser: The best thing is seeing the light in their eyes when they're excited to learn something and do something. And then, once they've had a concrete experience, having like you give the academic vocabulary to attach to that and they retain it so much easier. So, the way that they can talk about what they're doing is so much more professional and academic when it's rooted in that hands-on experience and also experiences that are meaningful to their communities.
Lee Van Roth: And obviously, gardening and working with the land, it's not an impossibility here in Michigan, but sometimes we have some aspects to our lovely state that might make it a little challenging for growing certain things or just weather in general. How have your students kind of looked at those challenges and come up with more unique solutions to unique issues have in the experience so far?
Laurel Wiinikka-Buesser: Yeah. So, well, one thing is we just got a greenhouse installed a few weeks ago, so that we can extend our growing season. But something that's really important to me is that we focus on native plants and sustainable agriculture. So, we're trying to help kind of build a green jobs pipeline, so that students are ready because with climate change we're going to see a lot of changes in weather patterns.
Lee Van Roth: Sure.
Laurel Wiinikka-Buesser: And a lot of new challenges. So we're trying to build the skills to meet those challenges, both in agriculture and also with like green infrastructure, like building rain gardens and other ways of helping reduce the impact of climate change in our communities. Yeah, I one day would love to do a green roof unit. That's probably further on the line.
Lee Van Roth: Sure.
Laurel Wiinikka-Buesser: Yeah.
Lee Van Roth: And, obviously, this program, like so many, comes as a group effort. You mentioned a mentor at semis, and I know there's also partnerships building with organizations like Growing Hope, Matthaei Botanical Gardens over in Ann Arbor, as well with with U of M. And when you had mentioned food equity, food sustainability and things like that, Growing Hope was one of the first groups that I thought of.
Laurel Wiinikka-Buesser: Yeah.
Lee Van Roth: And I'm wondering how are those partnerships coming together and how are they impacting the student experience.
Laurel Wiinikka-Buesser: Very positively! So, as part of the CTE, we build an advisory board. And so, a lot of those partnerships started out kind of informally through field trips. And now, they sit on our advisory board, and they help directly inform the program to make sure that the skills students are learning are well-aligned with the jobs and skills that are needed in the actual workforce. And, yeah, I'm really excited about working with Matthaei too. We are meeting later this week. They're going to come visit us. We've visited them several times. So, I'm interested in helping kids prepare for all sorts of green jobs, including research or conservatory management, greenhouse management, landscaping. So, I'm trying to build a very wide repertoire of community partners. And I feel very lucky that we've had so much interest in the program as well.
Lee Van Roth: This is WEMU's On the Ground Ypsi. I'm talking with Laurel Wiinikka-Buesser from Ypsilanti Community Schools. So, Laurel, in Sarah Rigg's article, she was able to speak with one of your students who had mentioned that the natural areas around the high school were something that he really appreciated and wanted to see more use out of. And I'm wondering if there are any other interesting moments that students have shared with you just about interacting with the natural world around them and the interest that kind of evolves over the course of the course.
Laurel Wiinikka-Buesser: Something that I see really consistently that brings me a lot of joy is, when kids start the class, they often kind of see trees and plants as inanimate. And by the end of the course, they're talking about trees like community members or as they see how important the natural landscape is. So, something I'm trying to develop is their kind of ability to read the natural landscape around them, both to appreciate it but also to be good stewards of the land.
Lee Van Roth: And the project-based learning aspect of the program, we mentioned that postcard fundraiser using microscope slides. I mean, what a cool and interesting, unique kind of gift to receive, really. But I'm wondering. Are there other creative project ideas that are kind of floating around either in your own head or the things that students have brought up that we could potentially see from this program, say, next school year?
Laurel Wiinikka-Buesser: We actually just started stratifying some native seeds that the students collected from our native prairie garden, so we're hoping to do a native plant sale and also grow some things out of our greenhouse, like vegetable seedlings and stuff this year. And then, one of our actual admin team suggested that we bring in the middle schoolers to help plant a tree in the orchard, so that when they are graduating there might actually be fruit on that tree.
Lee Van Roth: Oh, what a fun way to build up that community feeling as well that you had mentioned and wanting to beautify your community in this way!
Laurel Wiinikka-Buesser: Yeah!
Lee Van Roth: Very exciting stuff!
Laurel Wiinikka-Buesser: Thank you!
Lee Van Roth: And, Laurel, I wanna thank you so much for joining me here today and giving us a look into the agriscience and botany CTE program that is blooming here in YCS. I know we are very excited to see what comes out of the program in the years to come. And especially once we're out of this winter, I'm sure that you'll have students outside as soon as possible.
Laurel Wiinikka-Buesser: Yes!
Lee Van Roth: For more on today's conversation and a link to the full article, visit our website at WEMU.org. On the Ground Ypsi is brought to you in partnership with Concentrate Media. I'm Lee Van Roth, and this is your community NPR station, 89.1 WEMU FM Ypsilanti. Celebrating 60 years of broadcasting at Eastern Michigan University!
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