With the help from former EHHS students, a community garden at the International House of San Tomasso in Akron, now has access to harvested rainwater that can be preserved for future use through the construction of rain barrels.
Amy Walker, assistant professor in the School of Teaching, Learning and Community Studies, worked with the International Institute of Akron (IIA) to spearhead the week-long, summer STEM camp for middle school-aged refugees.
Middle childhood education undergraduate students co-led the program as part of a research project that partnered with the International Institute of Akron. The interdisciplinary program, called Summer RISE (Refugee and Immigrant Student Education), focused on culturally responsive teaching practices.
Students built rain barrels and installed at the International House, where many of the refugee families live. IIA was gifted a plot of land for community gardens for refugee families, but it lacked access to water. Eight Kent State undergraduate pre-service teachers, representing a variety of concentrations, designed a project-based learning program to build and install the rain barrels for refugee families using EHHS SEED funding.
"In response to this need, the program covered sustainability, water, and nutrition, culminating in refugee youth building two rain barrels for the IIA community gardens in their neighborhood in the North Hill section of Akron," said Walker.
Some lessons learned from the project include:
- The history of rain barrels and how to build them
- Precipitation patterns in Ohio, the U.S., and the students' home countries (Nepal, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, and Afghanistan)
- Knowledge of produce and vegetation
- Touring an urban farm in North Hill to learn about irrigation, composting, and gardening
- Information about nutrition and choosing produce for gardening
- Familiarization of vocabulary for environment, produce, and nutrition