Getting Restarted with AquaGrove
Due to current conditions, if you are a school it is highly likely that you have not seen your students for several months. And while a vision for the upcoming school year has yet to be finalized, many educators are getting ready to potentially have partial in-person instruction very soon. In just less than one and half months, summer will come to a close and the 2020-21 school year will begin; students will be ready to be engaged and learning under this new normal that has been developing.
Based on the discussions between AquaGrove and its partners in education, there are certainly preparations underway by educators to either continue or restart their AquaGrove systems and programs. Over the last few months, AquaGrove has made an effort to provide some basic guidelines to remain safe and maintain appropriate safety standards while having students involved in sustainability and aquaponics programs. As published in an earlier blog post, “Tips for Managing AquaGrove During the Coronavirus Pandemic”, a few safety steps that can be easily adopted include: installation of an automatic fish-feeder; creating staggered maintenance schedules; practicing safe cleaning in and around the system.
While safety precautions can be taken to have students back and hands-on with the AquaGrove system, if you are a grower who used this time to clean and empty your system, you may be looking to restart from the beginning. With this step often requiring a little refresher, AquaGrove encourages growers to revisit their starter guides, as well as take a look at our previous article: “Getting Started with AquaGrove”. The article provides a brief overview of the steps to get the system started properly and can provide some direction and an idea of the time needed to have the system student-ready.
Once you have your new and enhanced safety precautions in place and a plan for having your system properly prepared for adding fish/plants, you will be facing the most exciting part of the process: engaging students. The Learning Guide that comes with the AquaGrove system includes some useful lessons, as well as links to other resources that offer a myriad of activities and topics that teachers can cherry-pick and customize to their students’ ages, skill levels and areas of interest.
As most everyone in education is aware, we have embarked on a new territory when it comes to teaching, and the stress that teachers and students have experienced with online and distance learning has impacted progress and the dynamics of the “classroom”. For this reason, it is important to use the tools and resources available to teachers for getting back on track. For example, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) launched a series of briefs to address continuation of teaching and learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Through a partnership between the Global Education Innovation Initiative at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the OECD’s Directorate of Education and Skills, the World Bank Education Global Practice and the organization Hundred, the series presents a set of online educational resources to support the continuity of teaching and learning with education leaders around the world.
This annotated selection of online educational resources intended for students, teachers and parents, aims to support governments and other education leaders as they research and assess different ways to continue educating students during the COVID-19 Pandemic. It can be used by those designing or improving upon a plan for education continuity, by either directly incorporating some of these resources into their plan, or using them as a model to develop their own online educational materials.
No matter where you or your students are in the AquaGrove learning process, you are not alone, and the above referenced resources are a great place to start preparing for the next school year and harvest. As AquaGrove supports its partners in education, more tools, links and resources will continue to be shared so that students and teachers can be learning and growing, together, very soon.