I wanted to post this path awhile ago. However, I left the notecards in my suitcase when coming home from Guatemala in the rush to get to the airport for my flight to Berlin.

The meeting with the teachers at the Meso was definitely inspiring. So many of them had great ideas!

Here are a few that I am translating:

• We could create a volunteer Meso group where the students could organize and chose where they could volunteer outside of the school.
• Some birds are getting hurt when they hit the windows of the preschool. Using this issue, could we partner with science and do something to help and then incorporate math and language too?
• Create a project with plants – identify local plants and create signs and images so that people will know the local fauna.
• Using the garden to connect with applied mathematics. Calculate the area, calculate the quantity of seeds in meters squared, estimate spending and income, budgeting.
• Watering system for the garden using recycled materials.
• Thinking about mangroves and the brackish water,  connecting it to math by working with probabilities – will a seed germinate? Using these partner with science to conduct an experiment with different levels of salt in the water.
• Create a hydroponic system for the garden.
• Find a local retirement home and create art for them and with them.
• Continuing with the retirement home idea, get to know the residents and then help society understand the needs of this population.
• Many teachers wanted to work with the garden idea, either with planting in plastic bottles, growing and selling the plants, teaching younger kids, sending nourishing food home to houses that needed it.
• Create physical activities for others in the area to participate in.
• In the language arts, create activities for students or parents to share stories, experiences, or do interviews to maintain cultural stories in the community.
• Create a project that helps with mental health in the area.
• Bring back the ecobrick project and teach the community the importance of putting the trash in the correct place.
• Having a class just take videos of the projects happening in the the school and creating documentation in both English and Spanish of what is happening on campus for the community.
• Teaching English to young people outside of the school.
• The music class could interpret music and share with the community.
• Reforestation in the area.
• Grow more vegetables in the garden and share them with the cafeteria.

All these ideas are interesting! I look forward to a day when we can look back on these and see which ones came to fruition.