Placement SAE Visit

Valentines Day tulips.

 On February 14th, I had the joy of visiting Molly Gehr and Leah Hess at both of their Paid Placement SAE project at Riverside Blooms, a local flower farm in the Penn Manor school district with my cooperating teacher (CT), Neil Fellenbaum.  Both Molly and Leah work on the flower farm throughout the year and when I visited them, were forming seed blocks and starting flower crops from seed. Coincidentally, I visited them on Valentine's day when they were working and was able to observe some of the sales of tulip bouquets for last minute shoppers.

When I arrived, Molly was separating out seeds of different flower/flower varieties from a seed bin for her and Leah to plant later that day.  Molly took a moment from separating out the seeds to show me around the farm as well.  On the farm, there are 3 high tunnels, one being brand new that were already growing a few different flower crops.  There is one shorter greenhouse/high tunnel in which several flower crops were growing and some were already in bloom.  There were tulips in bins that were growing but not yet in bloom.  

The soil block formation tools.

After observing the outdoor sections of the flower farm, Fell and I left Molly to return to her work and went on to visit Leah who was working on making/forming soil blocks in the basement of the house on the property.  In the basement, there were several crates of tulips in bloom, seedlings, and other assorted flower crops and bulbs growing under artificial light. Leah was able to demonstrate how to form the soil blocks by using the perfect mixture or soil parts and moisture levels to bind the blocks together.  Molly then brought the seeds down to Leah that she had separated out and Leah was able to demonstrate how to plant very small seeds using a toothpick into each individual soil block space.

Leah planting small seeds with a toothpick.

I had a bit of a struggle to schedule the SAE visit originally, but after a few cancelations and reschedules, my CT was able to arrange a visit at Riverside Blooms (his place of residence) with Leah and Molly's supervisor/boss (his wife).  The day of the visit during school, I talked to Leah and Molly and let them know that Neil and I would be visiting their workplace. Directly prior to the visit, I briefly discussed with Neil Fellenbaum about typical SAE visit procedures and typical questions asked.  He typically asks the students about their visit, observes what tasks they are doing, and what they are learning and what they know.  I tried to mimic some of the questions that I asked around this method/mentality.  I also printed out the questions which I was tasked with asking and placed them a clipboard for quick reference during the visit.

planted and sprouted seeds in the soil blocks.

During the visit, I based my evaluation of each of their programs on growth in the project and what each of them were learning at their placements.  I also asked each of them how what they were learning at the farm related to their current and past courses at Penn Manor.  Additionally, I looked at each of their records in AET and looked for signs of growth and learning in their projects records.  Each of their records showed signs of growth and learning and I was super happy to see that documented.  During the visit, I made very few suggestions for improvement other than to continue or more regularly enter journal entries into AET.   Overall, it was super neat to see what each of them were doing and learning in their Paid Placement SAE projects.

Slightly heated greenhouse with flowers.