Today was a really big day for both the Adobe Project and the ETC Garden as well. It all started this morning. We hosted 100 kindergartners from a local elementary school to come out to the campus and see what sort of sustainability and environmental projects we had in the works as part of an early Earth Day celebration. They divided into groups of about ten students and rotated between sidewalk chalk activities and touring one of four stations; the Cactus Garden, Composting, Vertical Gardening, and the Adobe Pit. After a few minutes at each station a fellow student, and ETC Garden member, would sound off on a hand drum to alert them it was time to move to the next station.
The Cactus Garden related information to the students about native vegetation and cacti. The Composting station covered – you guessed it – composting. The Vertical Garden station was about vertical gardening using hydroponics. The last station is where I was setup for the Adobe Project. I had a pile of soil, the screen, a bucket, a container of water, the adobe form, and a finished adobe brick with a scraping tool. I started out each group by asking them if they knew what adobe was. Then I explained it was a special mud that we let dry into bricks so we could build things with them. Next, I would ask the group if any of them would like to help me make an adobe brick. Of course, all of them would raise their hands. So, at this point, I would shovel a couple scoops of dirt into the screen.
Then I would say, “This next part is the hardest. I’m going to need some help. Would anyone like to help me shake this dirt into the bucket?” All of their hands shot up at this point. I would then have them gather around the screen and help me shake it into the bucket. Comments such as, “Is this your first time doing this? You guys are pros! Awesome!” really helped keep them happy, engaged, and excited about the work.
After we had some dirt in the bucket, I would stop and say, “Adobe is made is mud, but all we have here is dirt. What do we have to add to dirt to make mud?” Usually a couple of the kids would pipe up and shout “Water!” I would then say, “That’s right, water! Luckily, I have some right here, so we can make some mud.” I poured the water into the dirt and made a mud mixture. This was normally when the kids would really start getting excited as they realized an adult was making a mess. Of course, not one to hog all of the fun, I would then move into the next portion of the process by explaining that this mud special because it had clay in it and clay was like a glue that held the mud together.
From here, the kids would each gather their own handful of mud and squish it into a ball or a patty to see how it stuck together. Afterward, I would have them rinse their hands in the water from the bucket I used to make the mud before moving on to the next segment, the adobe form. The adobe form was kind of boring for the children, so I made it the shortest part, stopping only to explain that this wooden “ladder” was used to take the mud and make it into a square brick for drying. Then we would move on to the actual finished adobe brick.
The finished brick was the last portion of the station and other than the mud, the most exciting for the kids. I had them knock on the brick to see how hard it was. Then I had them try to lift a corner to see how heavy it was. Finally, I would have them line up and take turns using the scraper to “help me” square off the brick so that we could use it to build with. We almost always ran over our time a little bit because everyone wanted to take a long time scraping the brick. It was a lot of fun.
The afternoon group was less about the adobe and more about Earth Day and the garden as a whole, so I will cover that in a separate post tomorrow. There will also be a large amount of pictures and video to follow as well from the last week. Stay tuned!
