Lecture

• Joe Van Rossum, former UW-Extension Natural Resources Educator
• Mike Maddox, director of the Master Gardener Program
• Joanne Ekena, Rock County MGV
• Teaching Composting playlist
• Note: Videos are between ~5-15 minutes long

Activity: Create a Teaching Tool

Education is an important aspect of Master Gardener volunteering.  Because of this emphasis, we want you to have the opportunity to practice thinking about and preparing for a potential teaching opportunity.  For this activity, you are to create a teaching tool that you could potentially use in your volunteering to teach about composting.  We really want to emphasize this.  If you can finish this project having something you can actually utilize and teach with, it will be so much more meaningful to you– and it will not feel like busywork.  This activity will require you to practice thinking about who you’ll be teaching, what you’ll be teaching, and how you would go about delivering the information- all valuable skills for MGVs. While we are going to give you some guidelines, this project is open to your ideas.  We are leaving this wide open to your creativity.  Below the instructions is a list containing some ideas that you could create and you’ll see that there is a lot of variety.  

Too vague?  Here are some specific requirements for this project:

1.  Select an audience.  This could be a group you’d like to volunteer with or that you are working with already, such as a fifth grade class or the general public at the community garden you manage.
2. Pick a topic. Consider what would be an appropriate lesson topic to teach that audience about composting.  If you’re having trouble thinking of where to start, you can go back to the basics: how to assemble a compost pile.  You can also select one of the topics from the Advanced Composting lecture playlist if you think it would be interesting to your audience.  **You do not need to plan out the entire lesson you would teach. This is just to guide you in future steps.**
3. Create a teaching tool. Envision something you could create that would aid in your teaching that composting topic to that audience.   Here is where we want you to get focus on planning and get creative.  Yes, you could put together a handout, but really consider what would help that audience learn best.  If you’re not sure what to do, some ideas are below.  Create this teaching aid on your own.  (Note: We do not expect you to invest anything beyond your time and effort in this project. If you wish to purchase additional supplies you don’t already have, you are welcome to, but it is not expected.  If you have an idea that you think might take a fair amount of time to create, please see our policy on how many hours to claim below.)
4. Show us what you created.  Here are your options for doing this:

-Email your work in to the program office.  Include the audience, lesson topic, and tell us about what you created.  To do this, you can attach a copy or a picture of what you created.  Email: Amy Freidig, Program Assistant (akfreidig@wisc.edu)

-Mail your work in to the program office.   Include the audience, lesson topic, and tell us about what you created.  To do this, you can send in a copy or a picture of what you created.  Address: Amy Freidig c/o Master Gardener Program, 1575 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706