Growing Knowledge

Permaculture Principles and Element Analysis

2011-11-21T04:46:00.000-08:00

We met again with the students on Thursday to go over some general principles of permaculture design and to talk about element analysis. We used the classic example of the permaculture chicken and how all of the needs and outputs of the chicken can be integrated into the other elements of a site. Then the students got busy listing out the elements that they had requested from last week and analyzing them. We looked at how all of the elements have needs that can come from the outputs of other elements. This is one basic premise of permaculture design - planning ahead to create a system that is in balance. Next we will sit down with the students to use all of the lessons we have talked about this month to create model proposals for the new site. Exciting!

St. Joseph's Vision

2011-11-16T21:21:00.000-08:00

After giving some thought to the site, we all met up again last Thursday to talk about what the students would like to see in their new school. It is very important for the students to direct this process as they will be working to get the site together and experiencing the results. Elin suggested mind mapping to help the students create a visual representation of their ideas. So we set about teaching the students the concept, and we then settled in as the students - listening to them tell us about what will make their new school a better learning environment.

Site evaluation

2011-11-16T19:22:00.000-08:00

Hello! This is volunteer, Lisa, and I'll be keeping you updated on the progress over the next few weeks. I'm really excited to be working with Elin and Frida, as well as St. Joseph's - what bright, eager students.

We went out to the new site last Monday....and, wow! Lack of water won't be a problem for this school. We're nearing the end of an abundant short rains season, but for now we have a lake. Every challenge is also a solution, right? We're working with the students to talk about design ideas for using this water in a positive way.

We also looked at the composition of the soil, sun and wind paths, and native plants already on the site. The students filled out worksheets about their observations and then we talked about them as a group. This experience gave the students a chance to think about working with your site to find design solutions.

Back in Kisumu!

2011-11-10T05:38:00.000-08:00

Since the last update, when the final report of Growing Knowledge was posted, the project has been moving very slowly but in the right direction. Now one of us in the group is back in Kenya trying to get things started. It has been decided that the school should move to a new site soon, preferably already in January 2012. Hence, together with the permaculture instructor Elin and her volunteer Lisa we are working on a plan for the new site. In close cooperation with teachers and students we will during the coming weeks develop a permaculture design for the compound with focus on creating a good study environment and use the site to its full potential. We will give you further updates here on the blog as the workshops proceed and the design develops.

Frida

Growing Knowledge Final Report

2011-06-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

Hello again!

We completed the report two weeks ago, and immediately sent it out to people we had cooperated with during our work. Now we also publish the report here at the blog, for everyone to read. If you have questions or comments, please post them here at the blog or send us an email (knowledgegrowing@gmail.com). We really appreciate all the feedback that we can get.

Download the report from here (.pdf):
Growing Knowledge Final Report

Really busy!

2011-05-30T12:44:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

The last weeks we have been really busy with finalizing the report and presentation material for the project Growing Knowledge. we have spent hours and hours by the computers to put together a toolbox for how to start farming at a school and at the same time improve the study environment as well as giving opportunities for new ways of learning. We have also developed a specific design proposal for how St Joseph Seconday School can get a better study environment while growing food and getting a chance to practical parts of the education.

On Wednesday 1 June we will present our result at Chalmers and after that it will be published here at the blog and sent to all of you who have requested the material. If you are interested in having the material please send us an e-mail at knowledgegrowing@gmail.com!

Joel, Helena, Frida, Sofia and Sarah

1:1 model building

2011-05-17T00:23:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

Since we wrote last time our number one priority has been to work on the layout of St. Joseph's schoolyard. Today we did an experiment were we built things from the layout in their real size!

It was a lot of fun and gave a good idea of how the design will work. We especially tested two outdoor group rooms, one bigger and one smaller. This is how it looked:

The bigger group room. Imagine this to be a pergola outdoors! [Photo: Joel Berge]

The smaller room for less people. We tried to have our group meeting there and it was nice.

[Photo: Helena Sandberg]

King of Compost and a New Design

2011-05-13T11:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Joel and Frida went to the Botanical garden in Göteborg to work together with two school calsses, from 1st and 2nd grade in primary, to learn more about composts. We also wanted to look at how the pedagogues at the garden worked when teaching about plant, nature and composts. Together with the children we got to look at the different insects, worms and spiders that live in the compost. The kids also used the nutritious soil from the compost to plant sun-flowers but the most fun part was to help build the king of compost. When tha compost man had got his head and his last arm we all got to be part of the ceremonious crowning of 'The King of Compost'.

One of the worms we found in the compost. [Photo: Frida Skarp]

One of the children is planting a sun-flower. [Photo: Frida Skarp]

Frida and Joel are helping to fasten the compost man's crown. [Photo: Helen Ekwall]

The King of Compost sitting on his throne. [Photo: Frida Skarp]

Today we have been working hard with the model we built last week to create a good and beautiful school yard at St. Joseph Secondary School. With the help of sketch paper, glue and sticks we tried to build our future vision of the school yard in scale 1:50. We have been looking at what rooms and structures the students and the teachers at the school asked for when we talked to them and also how we can create them by using the tools from the toolbox we put together. We hope that everybody at the school will like what we come up with!

From left, Sofia, Joel, Helena and Sarah are building on the model of the school yard. [Photo: Frida Skarp]

A little scale figure in our model looking at the new pergola and the big tree in front. [Photo: Helena Sandberg]

An overview over the yard after we added some of our tools (new elements) [Photo: Joel Berge]

Linnéskolan in Alingsås

2011-05-12T01:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Helena and Sofia visited Linnéskolan, a Waldorf school in Alingsås. The school has an ecological profile, which means, among other things, that they only use ecological products, serve vegetarian food and has a building constructed with as much natural materials as possible. Linnéskolan has a kitchen garden where they grow herbs, flowers, strawberries and more. They use the produce in the kitchen and also to produce products such as tea, soap, lip balm, apple cider vinegar etc. The school compound also contains a lovely birch forest, where the pupils can play and relax. The visit was a good inspiration for our continous work with St. Joseph's school yard!

The herb garden where Linnéskolan grows thyme, oregano, marjoram, allium, strawberries and more [photo: sofia wendel]

The birch forest [photo: sofia wendel]

The students and techers together produce herbal tea, soap, apple cider vinegar, herbal salt and more [photo: sofia wendel]

The interior of the school is made with natural materials such as wood [photo: sofia wendel]

Helena in one of Linnéskolan's class rooms [photo: sofia wendel]

The exterior of the school [photo: helena sandbergh]

System Thinking and Model Building

2011-05-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

While in Kenya we made a big system of how different issues and ideas of the school today relate to each other. The last two days we have been testing how the tools in our toolbox can affect that system. By doing this we hope to find out if any of the tools are more important than others at St. Joseph Secondary School. we also built a new model of the school since the ones we did in Kenya were too big to bring home on the airplane. Next week we will use the model in a design workshop where we try to find good solutions for how the school yard at St. Joseph can look in the future.

Sarah, Sofia and Helena try to put our tools in the system [Photo: Frida Skarp]

Joel puts the system into the computer [Photo: Frida Skarp]

Sofia is cutting a wall for the model of the school. [Photo: Frida Skarp]

Frida is putting up the biological fence around the school yard. [Photo: Helena Sandberg]

This is the finished model ready to be used in the design workshop. [Photo: Frida Skarp]

Posters from the UN-exhibition

2011-05-05T12:08:00.000-07:00

A bit late but here you can see the posters from our UN-exhibition in Nairobi. If you have any questions feel free to contact us at knowledgegrowing@gmail.com or write a comment below the post!

The project continues in Sweden

2011-05-03T12:29:00.000-07:00

Hi all!

We are now back in Sweden and finally, the blog is up and running! We hope you will enjoy reading it and continue following our project. If you have any thoughts about the project, please give us feedback!

Since we came back to Sweden we have done a lot of things! We started by going to the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences that held a workshop about urban farming. There we worked together with other students trying to understand what a permaculture guild is and how it can be put together. We designed such a guild out of what kind of plants we needed for a special dish. It all ended in a design and a very quick building on parts of it. What our group made was called a 'soil saussage' and was basically soil wrapped in cloth and the hung from the ceiling. This can be a way of farming when you don't have enough space for farmland on the ground!

A sketch of our guild design. [Photo: Helena Sandberg]

Making the 'soil saussage'. [Photo: Helena Sandberg]

Hanging it up. [Photo: Helena Sandberg]

Last week we researched permaculture a bit more by watching the old TV-series The global gardener with the founder of permaculture, Bill Mollisson. There we learned about many good design solutions! We also studied some litterature and had a litterature seminar yesterday. The litterature was about permaculture, outdoor education, pedagogics and urban farming.

But most of all we have been working on what we call the toolbox. It contains a lot of ideas for how to create a better school environment - tools. The aim is that it will be able to work as inspiration for schools in East Africa that want to work with farming and sustainable development of their school! As it looks now it has 6 main parts or sections - farming, water management, waste management, pedagogical opportunities, health & hygiene and meetingplaces. By next week we hope to be able to publish some of it for you to see and give feedback on! If there is something you think should be in such a toolbox already now, please write to us! The email adress is on the right.

Brainstorming for the toolbox. [Photo: Frida Skarp]

Working on the toolbox. [Photo: Frida Skarp]

This week we will continue to work on the toolbox, search for good places to visit in Sweden (schools that farm, organisations intrested in urban farming and so on) and if we are lucky, some of us will be able to attend a course in ecological farming!

All the best,
Helena, Joel, Frida, Sofia and Sarah

Exhibition Kisumu & UN-HABITAT

2011-05-03T07:44:00.001-07:00

Towards the end of our field studies in Kenya, we presented our work at two exhibitions, one in Kisumu and another one at UN-HABITAT in Nairobi. These exhibitions were done together with the other project-groups in the Reality Studio course. Furthermore, a group of students from Maseno University also presented their project, a development strategy for Molo town.

The exhibition in Kisumu took place at the Sports Ground, in the city center. A lot of people showed interest for our project, Growing Knowledge. Our aim with the exhibition was to gather as many opinions and feedback as possible from the visitors. Therefore we had, except for a brief project description, two parts of our exhibition that was interactive. The first part consisted of several sketches showing different farming methods. We asked the exhibition visitors to tell us their opinion by placing stickers next to the methods - a yellow sticker if they liked the particular method, or a red sticker if they did not like it. Whenever possible, we also tried to ask them why they thought so, to start a discussion and to get more detailed feedback. The second part of our interactive section was about gathering opinions in a similar way, but instead of farming methods we had sketches showing various activities or aspects that could be present at a school, e.g. assembly area, games, quiet places, cleanliness etc. We asked the visitors what aspects they thought was most and what was least important.

When the exhibition ended in the afternoon, we were completely exhausted by talking constantly for several hours. However, we were also very happy for all the interesting discussions that took place during the day, and also for the feedback that people gave us. The summarize of the feedback showed us that the most popular farming methods (of the ones that we presented) were: Cultivation bench, Cultivation in sacks, Pergola, Rainwater harvesting, Espalier and Inter-cropping. This and other, more detailed, feedback have helped us in our continued work. We are very grateful to everyone who invested time to look at our project, to talk to us and give us feedback. We are especially grateful that so many students and teachers from St. Joseph Secondary School were able to attend the exhibition.

The exhibition at Sports Ground, Kisumu [All photos: Joel Berge]

The poster with sketches of different farming methods

Students and teachers from St. Joseph Secondary School honored us a visit

Mr Owiti, the principal of St. Joseph gives us feedback

The poster towards the end of the day, filled with stickers

Study visit: Badilisha Eco Village

2011-05-03T01:14:00.000-07:00

We went on a two-day study-visit to Badilisha Eco Village, during the 25-26 March. It is a demonstration farm for organic agriculture, situated at Rusinga Island, close to Mbita. Two teachers from St. Joseph's Secondary School came with us, the agriculture teacher (Maureen) and the principal of the school (Benard).

Evans, the founder of Badilisha, showed us around their farm. They were in the process of transforming their organic farm to permaculture practices. For this reason most of the projects were still in their beginning phase. Nevertheless, they had a lot of inspiring ideas. Evans also gave us a crash course in permaculture. He explained the main principles and demonstrated a lot of methods that is commonly used within permaculture, including the herb spiral, banana circle, rocket stove, swales, food forest and mandala garden.

Permaculture can be described as a consciously designed agriculture system. The main aim is to design an energy-efficient farm in a sustainable way so that it is able to satisfy the needs of the people, both today and tomorrow. Energy-efficient means that the farm should not depend on external energy sources, but instead make use of local resources. To accomplish this permaculture practicioners emphasise diversity, they use a lot of different species and plants that interacts and benefit each other. The study visit gave us a lot of knowledge and inspiration for our continued work. Thank you Evans and Badilisha! More information can be found at the Badilisha homepage.

On our way to Rusinga Island (from left: Joel, Benard & Maureen) [Photo: Sofia Wendel]

Evans is taking us to the Eco Village [Photo: Joel Berge]

Evans explains the principles of permaculture [Photo: Joel Berge]

One of the buildings at Badilisha Eco Village, the herb spiral is visible to the right [Photo: Sofia Wendel]

We examine the compost at Badilisha (from left: Maureen, Frida, Joel, Benard & Evans) [Photo: Sofia Wendel]

Banana circle at St. Joseph's

2011-04-25T11:41:00.000-07:00

After the visit to Badilisha Eco Village we talked about how nice it would be with a banana circle at the school. A banana circle is created by digging a big hole, about 50 cm deep. The soil is piled up around the hole, in a circle. Banana plants are placed there, along the circle. The soil and the hole is covered with mulch to keep the moisture from evaporating. Waste water from dishing and cooking and all sorts of organic waste can then be disposed in the hole. The water and nutrients will infilitrate into the soil and nuture the plants.When we suggested this for the school principal, it turned out that the school had discussed the same idea. We arranged for a day when we could create the banana circle at the school, together with teachers and students. We also invited a permaculture instructor, Elin Lindhagen, that offered to guide us in the work.

At the agreed day, when we arrived at the school with the plants, the students had already dug a hole at the ideal place, right next to the school's water tap. Amazed by the shown enthusiasm, we planted the plants and finished the banana circle together with the students. Elin led the work and explained each step that we did. We are very grateful that she could assist us, and we thank the students and teachers at St. Joseph's Secondary School for the positive spirit and their enthusiasm!

We gather mulch together with the students [All photos: Sofia Wendel]

Elin explains how to plant the lemon grass

The students continue with planting of the sweet potatoes

The soil and the hole is covered with mulch

The waste water from cooking can now be used to nurture the banana circle

The finished banana circle

Elin discussed farming with the teachers and students

Workshop with students at St. Joseph's Secondary School

2011-04-24T11:06:00.001-07:00

We arranged a workshop at St. Joseph's Secondary School, at the 21th of March. Around 30 students participated in total. They were divided into groups which worked with different tasks during the day. For two of the groups we had constructed models of the school, made out of cardboard. We had also prepared stickers with symbols for various feelings and activities, e.g. feeling happy, playing, studying, relaxing. The students were asked to place the symbols in the model, at places they felt correlated with the symbol in question. During the process we asked the students why they for example felt happy at that particular place, why that specific spot was good for studying or playing. We also had a second phase in which the students were asked to come up with suggestions for improvements of the school. These exercises helped us understand how the students use the school compound, and it also initiated a discussion about the development of the school.

The other groups measured the pH-value of the soil at the school yard and another nearby area. The measurements taught us that the soil at the school compound has ~pH 6. Furthermore it allowed us to get to know the students better, and they got a chance to talk to us in a more informal situation. The students made this a fantastic and fun day, thank you!

Some of the symbols that we used for the workshop

One of the groups that worked with the models and symbols

The other group

One of the models, right after the workshop

Students measuring pH of the soil

The sum-up where all groups explain what they have done during the day

All the participants. Thank you everyone!