Académique Documents
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Culture Documents
Laura Donoghue, Tessa Hamilton, Catherine Hughes, Philippe Turineck, & Jessica Kim
Project overview
-Usually, Tomatosphere is a project that is done in a single class; our goal is to start a
school garden at McGill Elementary school.
What is Tomatosphere?
-Tomatosphere is an award winning program that has engaged more than three million
students since its inception in 2001.
-Each year, over 15,000 Kindergarten to Grade 12 classrooms across Canada use
Tomatosphere as a way to investigate the effects of space on food to support human space
travel.
-The results from Tomatosphere help Canadian scientists understand some of the issues
related to long-term space exploration.
Our Goal
Usually this is a classroom-based project, but our plan is to introduce this as a school wide project.
Our vision is to open The McGill Tomato Garden and plant the tomato seeds provided by
Tomatosphere and then have the students learn in science class about the growth of a plant.
Tomatosphere has created a curriculum for all grades from Cycle 1 to Secondary school science.
Our aim in broadening this to a school project is to have teachers expand on the basic
Tomatosphere Seed Investigation by connecting it to studies of plants, space, nutrition, math, and
the environment, depending on grade and curriculum.
We then hope partner up with a local culinary school (cole des mtiers de la restauration et du
tourisme de Montral) and the Atwater Market. Students will be able to get exposed to community
involvement as well as take part in business practices.
Why Tomatosphere?
How to maintain a garden, how physically tiring and time consuming it can be
Community involvement
Cultivation practices
Cooking practices
1) Objectives
) the plan, purpose, experiments, budget, goals for specific cycles, benefits, whats
after the project, etc.
-) To discuss
1) Potluck
Budget
- Teachers bringing food: $0
- Extra food & drinks: $100
- Table setting: $80 (estimate)
Pre-Departure Meeting #2
A meeting with the parents and members of the community (Feb. 1, 2017)
1) Objectives
-) the purpose, who are going, where, what students will be doing, objectives,
benefits, activities before, during, and after the project
1) Presentation
Budget
-) Wine boxes: $26.99 x 20 = $539.80 (estimate)
-) Cheese: $3.99 x 30 = $119.70 (estimate)
-) Extra food and drinks = $40
-) Table setting = $200 (estimate)
Visit # 1: Northview Heights Secondary
School
Northview Heights Secondary
School in North York, Ontario
has successfully used Tomato
Sphere seeds to create a
project in their school
comparing the growth rates of
space tomato seeds vs earth
tomato seeds. (Rushowy 2014,
Toronto Star)
Objectives for our visit to Northview
Heights
Objectives:
-Gain insight on how supportive the Tomatosphere organization was in terms of additional support
-To see the logistics involved in maintaining the garden and the costs associated
-To see how the school incorporated the Tomatosphere project into different cross-curricular subjects
-To gain feedback from community members, staff, students about their experience launching the Tomatosphere
project
-Learn about the science experience conducted at Northview Heights Secondary School comparing growth rates
between Tomato Sphere seeds and regular earth tomato seeds.
Means to meet our objectives
-Meet with the staff and community members involved to find out the cost of maintenance
and the amount of volunteers required to successfully run this program
-Meet with the stakeholders of this project and discuss about unforeseen obstacles they
faced through their process
-Meet with the Science teaching staff to gain insight on lesson planning and experiments
that can be conducted in conjunction with Tomato Sphere
-Meet with different volunteer organizations of the community that are helping with the
project
Evaluation
-The teachers visiting Northview Heights Secondary School will be responsible for
documenting salient points about meetings and workshops they will attend.
-There will be feedback forms handed to staff members and community representatives to
gain feedback on how what they did well and what they would change about their
implementation of tomato sphere.
-Cost analysis forms will be filled out in conjunction with the members involved in
Tomato Sphere to obtain a yearly estimate cost for the project.
-Obtain sample lesson plans from staff members about Tomato Sphere based lessons
Cost of Visit #1
Cost of food per day: 40$ per teacher per day = 40$ x 2 x 3 = 240$
To discuss our plans for expanding the program within our school.
Means to meet our objectives
First-hand observation of Tomatosphere Laboratory at the University
of Guelph
Evaluation
lunchtime meeting with staff participants upon return to school
debriefing regarding details gathered during Guelph visit
Costs of Visit #2
Travel Via Rail $407.42 (tax incl)
2 adults
return trip
Total $2239.26
Visit #3
cole des mtiers de la restauration et du tourisme de Montral and
Atwater Market
Two teachers will take one day to visit cole des mtiers de la restauration et du tourisme de Montral and the
Atwater Market to seek potential future partnership
Objectives for Visit #3
-To help establish the costs of renting a kitchen and assistance for the
creation of the Red Planet Sauce
-Get estimates for opening a booth at the Atwater market to sell our
sauce
Means for Visit #3
-Visiting the facility and meeting the kitchen staff at the culinary school.
-Speak with the kitchen staff and receive estimates for the use of their
kitchen
Evaluation of night:
The parents will then have time to ask any further questions.
The parents will be asked to fill in a feedback form,
allowing them to sign up to assist in anyway they are interested.