Water the Garden Project

Due Date:  March 15th, 2016

We will put your creations in a special exhibit on Science Night at the end of March!

 

Challenge: How (and How Much) Do We Water our Foothill Gardens?

 

Step One:  The Discovery Phase:

In the Discovery Phase, you try to understand the Challenge!

Some good things to do:

• Collect and write down all the thoughts you have about the challenge.
• Does it feel like too much to do?  If so, can you find a smaller piece or make it simpler?
• Do you think you would like to work on this by yourself or with a team?  (Don’t worry, you can change your mind later!)  If you already have a team, you can share ideas with each other.
• Who is this design for?  Can you think of any questions you should ask those people?
• Can you think of any experts for this challenge?  Can you think of any questions you should ask the experts?
• How might you get some inspiration for this challenge?  Are there books you can look at?  What might be some good internet searches?  (Remember to be safe on the internet!
• Build a question guide:  Figure out things you would would like to know more about.  What do you still need to learn?

 

How to Write Good Questions:

• Think of some very specific questions that people will be comfortable answering.  For example, how do people deal with the challenge right now?
• Think of some very broad questions, ask about people’s hopes and fears.  What is the best that could happen?  What is the worst that can happen?
• Pay attention to the answers you get from your first round.  Use the answers to ask some ‘what if’ questions.

 

Some facts about our Foothill Garden to get you started:

• Our Foothill Garden is split between two places:  one near the MakerSpace, and one just by the Kindergarten rooms.
• Rain, temperature, and wind all affect the water needs of our garden.
• Different plants need different amounts of water.
• We have one community garden day a month, and we have had 5-20 people show up to each one.
• Donnette Teeple is the primary person responsible for taking care of our garden right now.

 

Some interesting projects that you might get inspiration from:

• How much water do vegetables need? https://bonnieplants.com/library/how-much-water-do-vegetables-need/
• When to water: http://www.gardeners.com/how-to/when-to-water/8108.html?SC=XNET9465
• Watering in a drought: https://lbre.stanford.edu/sites/all/lbre-shared/files/docs_public/CCWD_DroughtSurvivalGuide_Lawns.pdf
• A simple weather station example:  http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/for_fun/BuildyourownWeatherStation.pdf
• A sophisticated weather station example:  http://www.instructables.com/id/Complete-DIY-Raspberry-Pi-Weather-Station-with-Sof/
• Some self-watering systems:  https://green.thefuntimesguide.com/self_watering_gardens/
• A NASA-sponsored project for measuring soil moisture:  http://scistarter.com/blog/2015/07/nasa-and-scistarter-citizen-scientists-nationwide-research-soil-moisture-conditions-water-availability/#sthash.C1EtmpPD.dpbs

On our October FabLab Night, we’ll post Step Two: Brainstorming and Building Teams — at the end of that session, we’ll ask participants to tell us what materials they’d like to have for the next step — prototyping!