Soil Unit 2013 Kara Ashley Grace M

Nightcrawlers

Wonderful Poems from your editors Photo Montage

Organism of the Year: Earthworm Article Grow a Community Poster INSIDE!

History of Arlington Gardens

A Poppy Drawing!

Grace M, Ashley, & Kara

Organism of the Year

Earthworm

Soil is the start of the food chain. The plants

main causes of soil erosion are water and wind.

need soil to grow and strive in their environment.

The best way to decrease soil erosion is to make

The insects, mammals, or birds that eat the plants

sure that farmers know about the issue. With the

also consume the nutrients that help us survive.

ever-growing population, the future humans will

Soil provides food and ground for humans and ani-

still need soil to live. Together, we must make a

mals. Plants strive on nutritious soil and soil pro-

difference and preserve our soil.

vides oxygen for us to breathe and live. It also

Earthworms are important in keeping our

gives homes to wildlife. Different environments

soil healthy. Earthworms have no teeth, so they

and soil are homes for a variety of animals.

burrow through the dirt and eat as they go

Soil provides life for everybody, including

through. Whatever is inside the dirt, including mi-

humans, microscopic organisms, and mammals.

croscopic organisms goes inside the earthworm.

The erosion of soil is a worldwide issue that only a

Bacteria multiply inside the earthworm and the

few countries aren’t dealing with. We, humans,

earthworm’s casting add more bacteria to the soil,

are contributing to soil erosion and soil is an im-

which is good for the earth. Earthworms move soil

portant factor in life as it provides crops, oxygen,

from lower layers up to the surface and move or-

and nutrients. Many animals will lose their homes

ganic matter from the soil surface down to the bot-

as well as their food source as topsoil disappears.

tom. Where earthworms are active, the top 6 inch-

Many empires have fallen because of soil erosion

es of soil can be turned in ten to twenty years.

which shows that soil is essential to life. The

A Little History About Arlington Gardens Arlington Gardens has been Pasadena’s only dedicated public garden since it was established in 2003. The garden started out as a vacant Caltrans lot that stood at the corner of Arlington Drive and Pasadena Avenue for 40 years, untouched. This site had started as a home to only two mature oaks, a jacaranda, a California pepper, and five different varieties of palms. Today it stands as a beautiful site that is consistently being contributed to by the people of Pasadena.

In 2003, this lot had finally started to be discussed over. Councilmember Steve Madison asked the community, “What public development should be provided in this three acre lot?� The conclusion was that it should be passive with no playing fields, restrooms, or parking lots. There were no ideas about what from the development should take, until a woman named Betty McKenney stepped forward to suggest a water-wise Mediterranean garden. The idea became a success.

The garden is now full of nearly 400 trees and many varieties of plants that do well in any sort of weather condition. There are also benches, tables and chairs with umbrellas, pots, and paths with a labyrinth between them. This labyrinth was added to the garden on October 8, 2010 with the help of the sophomores at Mayfield Senior School.

The type of labyrinth that was built is called a Classical 7 Circuit labyrinth. This labyrinth pattern is more than 5,000 years old and is the oldest and most prevalent in the Labyrinth designs!

-Grace M

This is a poppy. It is also know as the California State flower.

-Ashley

The Garden Kara Above me, trees sway back and forth.

Beneath me, the ground feels rough and uneven.

Birds fly by me, chirping in my ear, While beyond everything, cars go racing by.

The smells of various flowers overlap each other, As well as the smells of the leaves and trees.

The petals between my fingers are soft and velvety.

To my right is an endless amount of plants, each Completely different, And rocks pile up on top of each other, As if they are fighting over something.

In the corner of my eye, I see a ray of sunlight Shining down on a certain flower.

I watch the single ray of light hit each petal slowly, As I think about this whole new world

The Arlington Garden Poem Ashley With the sun beading down on my back, Above head, at noon, It warms the wooden benches.

Families sit on the wooden lawn chairs, Enjoying the heat and the scenery surrounding them Lots of green plants, And shades of pink, orange, purple, blue, and yellow petals.

Flowers of all kinds.

Roses, daisies, poppies.

Round flowers, puffy flowers, flat flowers.

Flowers with 5 petals, flowers with 3.

The sweetness of the flowers is intoxicating And sound of the birds singing tunes, Is rich and soothing.

Hundreds of bees busy themselves, Moving from flower to flower with a quiet buzz.

The cars along the street whiz by like racecars.

Settings of the Garden Grace M

I look above to see palm trees, as if photo shopped around a clear blue sky I place myself at the beach with the sun’s rays dazzling on me I return to the garden as I hear crickets scream across to each other from different sides I look to my right to see the ridge of the black archway that surrounds me It feels like hot silk The palm tree in front of me had a series of ridges that wove onto the tree They are sharp, easy for climbing The lilly pad shape leafs that I pass are the red velvet ropes That make me feel like a V.I.P Surrounded by purple flowers, I am still in my celebrity moment The fill the air with their perfume When suddenly the organic matter smell strikes me And I am reminded that I am down to Earth

My Message to Soil Grace M Do u ever think why me?

Why must I be here?

My mind troubles as does yours For who you are is a sanctuary

You are a sanctuary Providing us with ground to let our cold feet walk upon To let new things sprout to surrender our hunger To let things die for life

lives and deaths are among u Would u consider yourself hell Or Earth?

Although they can almost be considered the same

I stand among u as a person As a person who has knowledge now You are one big cycle of life and death The people come as humans, and do their due as plants.

A New Type of Soil Kara Waves come crashing down in front of me I feel the sun pounding my back.

I close my eyes as a splash of water hits my face.

Around me I hear everything.

Families laughing, enjoying their day, Birds and their songs, flying overhead, And in the distance, cars go racing by.

The smell of barbeques brings back memories, As I watch sand fall through my fingers.

Out here it seems as if it’s a whole other world.

New animals, new faces, new plants.

The sand is the soil, along the shore, and Plants learn to grow.

It’s a home for crabs, birds, and bugs, And the ground is home to many others.

As I lay down under the bright, blinding sun, I think about this whole new place, A place full of life that is so different Because of its unusual soil.

Dirt Demystified Ashley As rays warm the salty atmosphere around me, Creatures roam this area, Sand crabs. Bugs. Birds. Humans.

The blue rolling waves, The endless water that won’t last forever.

Seagulls swoop in for a meal, Breaking the consistent crash of the waves.

As I withdraw from my life and into another, Warm sand slips through my toes.

The sand is soil.

A different type, but nonetheless soil.

It gives homes to sand crabs and small animals, It provides food for underwater critters.

It grows plants for us to breathe.

It creates life.

Staring into the picture perfect moment, I lose myself in another world, Where I’m not visible to the bad moments in life.

Where I can be free at last, Enjoying the Earth,

And what it brings to me.

Love. And most of all a chance at life.

The Editors

Letters from the Editor This past week and a half has an eye opening experience for the class to learn about soil and how it impacts the world. We really do not think about this topic much, but when you really learn about it, it is quite mindblowing. On the very first day we had to start writing reflections every night about this unit. One of my reflections the really shocked me was about the quote “Muck is the mother of the meal bag.” In a way this is true, because we need soil to grow fruits and vegetables, and eventually those fruits and vegetables are put into the meal bag. These two have a connection like a mother and child. I write about this quote, because it’s not something we think about until we actually see the quote, or really go in depth about the topic of dirt. It also struck my mind that Community Gardens can be used so easily with any type of land. Community gardens are so underutilized, when they are helping the planet and bringing a community together to create a “no pesticides” garden. They also can be very beautiful like Arlington gardens, which was made in 2003. It was such a peaceful place to sit down and lie in the sun. These things can be started easily with the help from a community. An example is the Pasadena Community Garden, which is a work in progress and can always use contributing. All of these are examples of community gardens that are really trying to make a difference in our local area.

The Golden Ratio that we learned was one of the most fascinating math problems I have ever seen and it is seen in different ways in community gardens. With Fibonacci numbers, I never imagined you could do so much. The numbers are in a pattern that fascinates me, by adding the first number with the second creating the third number and so on. This pattern is used with almost everything in nature and it seems impossible, but it actually is true. They are used in everything from flower petals to apple cores to branch growth.

Our soil unit rotation really gave us the chance to garden as a class and contribute to our area, like in a community garden. I think it is great that we are an herb garden by the commons. I didn’t know that you could really grow anything in that area. Although it may not be the greatest tasting plants ever, they will certainly be organic. As an addition we can now plant strawberries and poppies at our homes, thanks to the pots and seed bombs we received this afternoon. The rain gardens I think we can really get growing again and the vermicomposting system is a good edition to our campus.

New to my mind were all the tree types we learned about during the tree walk, which makes our campus so beautiful.

-Grace M

Letter from the Editor During the unit, we visited a few places. The first place was Arlington Gardens. Arlington Gardens is Pasadena’s only committed public garden and lies on three acres of land. There, we got to walk the labyrinth and get ideas for our “One Wild and Precious Life” poems. We also gathered samples from various parts of the garden so we could later look at the organisms living there. I liked the visit to the garden a lot more than I had anticipated. Normally, a trip to a garden wouldn’t excite me, but I was surprised after the trip.

We also got to visit a community garden in Pasadena. The particular garden we visited was a developing one. It didn’t seem like a garden, but it will soon enough. There, we learned about the different types of soil, sand, silt, and clay and go to see the differences between composted soils and soil that you’d find on the ground. Then, we got to help pull out weeds around the garden and mix different soils together to fill up a planter.

On campus, we did many activities. We studied organisms from soil, air, and plants. We learned about soil erosion and how that it is happening in many countries across the world. We read a book about the Fibonacci sequence and saw how a lot of things in nature related to it. Towards the end of the week, gardeners came to teach us. That day we got to garden, make a compost bin, and learn about the trees at our school. We were all given our own strawberry plant.

Throughout this week, we were divided into groups of three to make our own magazines. These magazines included our “organism of the year” cover story, each of our poems, propaganda poster, and each of our chosen pieces.

My group worked pretty well together. Because we were all friends, we were able to get a lot done and still have fun and mess around.

-Kara

Letter from the Editor Each day during the soil unit I learned something new. Whether it was how to garden or that soil is vital to our food chain. Everyday, I learned how soil impacted our lives and how we can help keep our soil healthy. The soil that we need to provide us with food are exposed to chemicals and plastic, from the trash that we produce. During, the soil unit comparison of microorganism experiment was fascinating yet nasty at the same time. While collecting samples from the Arlington Gardens, I learned that microorganisms lived everywhere and anywhere. Leaves, stems, trees, soil, and humans. I was surprised and fascinated. However, after collecting the data after the samples sat for 5 days I was no longer fascinated. I think the word disgusted was more like it. The different types of organisms I saw on each sample made my group members and I ... let’s say.. disgusted? We also decided that we would rather not take pictures of the microorganisms that were growing on various sources. During our time doing the soil unit we went on two amazing field trips. On the first trip to the Arlington Gardens, we ate lunch among the beautiful flowers and native plants and also walked through the labyrinth. For our second adventure we did more of hand-on activities. We pulled weeds, shoveled soil and compost into a raised bed, and learned what soil is and how it helps our planet. I experienced new activities each day and had fun while doing it, during the soil unit.

-Ashley

Our days during the soil unit ;)