Colin Christian’s biggest gripe with school is that he doesn’t get enough opportunities to apply learning outside the classroom. The IDEA Rise junior is getting that chance now by coding a solar panel to water the school’s vegetable garden.
“I’m really glad I actually do get the chance to do that here,” Colin said.
Students at the far west Fort Worth charter are programming a solar panel to power an irrigation system for their garden club’s next harvest. The project merges environmental science with computer science to solve a practical problem — the garden is too far from the school building to connect to existing water lines.
The collaboration began when environmental science teacher, Walter Obot, who runs the garden club realized he didn’t know how to program a donated solar panel. He brought the challenge to computer science teacher Cesar Reyna, who saw an opportunity for students to problem solve.
Colin, a member of the club since its founding last spring, now leads the coding project that will automate the garden’s watering system. He’s in Reyna’s Advanced Placement class and isn’t worried about the coding but instead the wiring and assembling of the different components.
“Just learning how to wire everything together should be really helpful,” Colin said.
The goal is for students to write code so the solar panel follows the sun throughout the day. The system will also monitor barometric pressure to help predict incoming storms.
“In the mornings it’ll be flat, and as the sun starts to go up, it’ll follow it around, then once the sun sets, it comes back and resets,” Reyna said.
The teachers wanted the project complex enough to challenge students without overwhelming them.
Reyna already wrote the code, but he wants students to write the code themselves. He’s incorporating the project into his lessons and giving students three weeks to work through it.
“This is a real thing that is going to have a real job to do in the real world,” Reyna said. “It’s a cool way for them to use what they have learned in class to actually do something.”
Classroom to garden
On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Colin and four other garden club members wheeled a garden shed uphill behind the school building.
Behind them, Melita Blanton, 11, followed at a slower pace, complaining about her legs hurting as they made the trek to the learning garden.
The group turned six flower beds into a vegetable garden last spring. Inside Obot’s classroom after the shed delivery, the room buzzed with activity.
Some painted signs for the upcoming spring harvest: corn, strawberries, blueberries.
Others gathered around biology teacher Victor Flores, another club adviser, while junior Jasmine Walker shared a tray of cabbage rolls she made from the fruits of the club’s last harvest.
Melita peeled off her jacket as she entered the classroom. She needed to warm up following her slog to the garden on this cold winter afternoon. She joined the group painting signs.
She keeps coming back to the garden club because it’s peaceful.
“I like the environment,” Melita said. “When I have a hard day, I go outside, take a deep breath, and I admire what God is making for us.”
Flores said the hands-on work helps concepts click for students who struggle with abstract lessons.
“Sometimes, it’s too far away from what they experience as a student,” Flores said. “Having the garden here, it has been able to click for them.”
Mia Rivera, a junior who joined the club when it started, said working in the garden helped her finally understand drip systems, a concept Obot covered in class that she hadn’t yet grasped.
“We learned how those work, and then we were able to build our own in the garden,” Mia said. “Through explaining the type of soil we were using, it all made sense.”
Obot drew on his childhood experiences around plants and flowers to create a club he thought students might enjoy. He offered a free A on an assignment in his class to anyone who showed up. He expected a few takers.
More students came than he expected. Many kept coming back even after earning the grade. They found satisfaction in watching plants they grew from seeds develop week by week.
When students returned from spring break to find their flowers had grown two or three times their original size, the transformation resonated.
“It was like, ‘Yeah, we did that,’” Obot said. “We took care of something. We put it in the ground and saw the literal fruits of our labor.”
The club now welcomes about 20 students weekly, ranging from sixth to 12th grade, though participation drops during sports seasons when students juggle competing commitments.
The garden is a teaching tool beyond Obot’s class. Students in the National Art Honor Society are creating a welcome sign, and a world history teacher plans to bring classes to the garden for lessons on early agriculture.
“If we can start to integrate outside-of-the-classroom learning without having to go to all the different places, it makes learning just that more tactile,” Obot said. “It gives them something to reach back to when they’re learning about these things in class and having seen it in action in the garden.”
Nicole Williams Quezada is a reporting fellow for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at nicole.williams@fortworthreport.org.
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Great Job Nicole Williams Quezada & the Team @ Fort Worth Report for sharing this story.
