Course: Grade 9 Exploring Technologies
Date: Fall 2018
Teachers: Phil Hosmar, Matt Rock, Mark Sumner
Grade 9 students explored how partnering with a local organization and learning about their work can help students fill an organization’s need with a product or service. In this course, we partnered with Urban Roots, a grassroots organization focused on revitalizing underused land in London to supply good, healthy food to those in need. After harvest, the Urban Roots food produce is distributed and/or donated equally between restaurants and markets, local social service organizations, and available for purchase to the local community. Our students used their newly developed knowledge and skills to design and create harvest boxes and countertop compost containers that will help Urban Roots live out their mission more fully. Together, our grade nine students were engaged in meaningful, beautiful work that will have a long-lasting impact on others and our community.
One of the goals of the Grade 9 Exploring Technologies Block class is to make learning authentic and purposeful by partnering with local organizations and causes. Our hope in developing these partnerships is to have students understand that their work has potential beyond achieving a certain grade or a finished project – their work has the ability to bless other people. As a Christian school, we believe we are called to love, serve and support our neighbours.
“It was neat to see students involved in a project from beginning to end coordinated between three different classes. There were so many connections between in class learning and real world applications. In the end, students could personally see the investment that they had made in the local community, for the local community.”
Phil Hosmar, Teacher
“I think my favourite part of this class is the wide variety of different projects we do, it is very difficult to become bored, because every week you are doing something different. All of the tools and skills the teachers have taught us have played a role in developing the final projects for Urban Roots.”
– Isaiah Bos, Student