Third Interview Preparation

A shot of El Sereno Community Garden with a billboard in the background

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  What is this person's area of expertise?

- My planned interviewee is Marie Salas, who is the contact person for El Sereno Community Garden - a plot of land available to residents in the nearby community for produce planting.   This targeted subject of mine has promising potential in being able to provide me with insight into what humanitarian effect urban farming has on a community setting.  I look forward to hearing how Marie manages her initiative and what encounters she had made that make her line of work meaningful.  

2.  Verify that you have called your interviewee to schedule an interview.  What is the date and time of the interview?

- Marie has not yet replied to my email, and so I have been unable to schedule a date with her as of now.  I am seeking other options as far as interviewees in community gardening settings are concerned just in case my interview request is not replied to indefinitely.

The email I sent to Marie Salas

3.  Phrase an open-ended question that will help you find research resources that would help to answer the EQ.

- How is the slow paced, more personable nature of urban farming more effective in producing food than commercial farming?

4.  Phrase an open-ended question that will help you think about other useful activities you might do to help you answer the EQ (IC2, possible experts to talk to, etc).

- How can I get involved with supplying locally grown food to those in my community, me being a student and willing volunteer of time and curiosity?

5.  Phrase two open-ended questions that help you to understand your interviewee's perspective on an aspect of your EQ.

- How have you helped families in the local community acquire food?  

- How does the nature of this food (in being grown so close to home) benefit each family helped and their wellbeing?

Blog 13: 10 Hour Mentorship Check-In

The bushel full of reward I carried to the car after a full two hours worth of work followed by Scott introducing us volunteers to those goodies that could be picked

1.   Where are you doing your mentorship?

- I am currently at work at Pomona College’s Organic Farm.

2.   Who is your contact?  What makes this person an expert?

- Scott Fleeman is my mentor and contact, and the fact that he graduated UC Santa Cruz with a degree in agriculture is substantiated by his daily management of the farm, where his knowledge of crops in rotation is necessary for bountiful harvests.  These harvests support the dining halls on campus and educate the public on the definition of urban farming and what it means to the Claremont community, and so Scott is instrumental is making the idea behind my senior topic productive and beneficial.  To see a person like Scott making a living off urban farming is also a reassuring observation that paints my topic as a means for not only environmental and personal well being, but for economic sustenance as well.

3.   How many hours have you done during the school year? (Summer Mentorship Hours and Mentorship Hours should be reflected separately in your Senior Project Hours log located on the right hand side of your blog).

- As of now, my hours logged in are counted as 17 (see updated log)...

4.   Succinctly summarize what you did, how well you and your mentor worked together, and how you plan to complete the remaining hours.

- My mentor and I have accumulated many moments together and so have a good rapport with each other and each other’s schedules has been established.  I have not ever felt foreign or uncomfortable at the option of not showing up for mentorship one day - so long as I let Scott know about the absence beforehand via an email or text.  Scott especially shows his support of my ambitions in taking the time to share cherished farming tips or mentioning my project to new faces we come into contact with.  After talking about my essential question and the direction of my project with Scott, I have made it a point to shadow Scott in what activities he has scheduled for each volunteer day I show for, these activities being hands-on and partaking in the general upkeep of the farm and its abundance of fragile inhabitants.  In this way, my fellow volunteers and I can be seen being trusted with the handling of tools as we follow Scott in his schedule as farm manager, collecting fruits and vegetables as a reward for our efforts.  Recently, maintaining the compost beds and planting new crops has been a priority.  I plan to complete my hours in the same way, supplemented by in-depth research of how my labors are applied in the overall scope of urban farming.  

Blog 12: Holiday Project Update

My mom and I snuggly dressed as we adventured onto a vacant Cal Poly Pomona Regenerative Studies lot

1.  It is important to consistently work on your senior project, whether it is break or we are in school.  What did you do over the break with your senior project?

- During winter break, I do admit that I mostly reflected on how my project would develop and how the answer to its essential question as it stands would come to be.  As of right now, I am researching plenty of techniques that make urban farming successful at the community level, and at this point, I plan to specify the direction of my project a bit more as my research quota exceeds what I need.  Shall I be focusing on the environmental benefits of the practice?  How shall I incorporate the economic opportunity the practice represents for many?  What aspect of urban farming ties in the significance of its process to the product (s) it delivers?  These questions must be answered as I experiment with and analyze the art of my topic, so that I can accurately present on my findings and sort what I have learned with a main idea in mind.  As a result of this mind-searching and excitement expressed by family members, I only got to lay down pavers around the perimeter of my garden and visit the Regenerative Studies lot at Cal Poly Pomona and their aquaponics farm (an inspiration for my own scaled down version of this invention) as part of my first independent component, as well as till coffee grains into the soil of some of my house pants (i.e. mint plant).  I do have high hopes that my planning will yield more fruitful results for my independent component and beyond.  

2.  What was the most important thing you learned from what you did, and why?  What was the source of what you learned?

- I learned that coffee deposits add important minerals to the composition of soil, and a natural source of acidity.  Knowing this, I added two heaping tablespoons to each pot of soil I could find in my house, and since then, have seen an abundance of mint leaf sproutings.  The single most important lesson I learned in my thoughts and simple endeavors is patience, as I gather as much data on and current goings of urban farming in anticipation of a definite direction for my project.

3.  Your third interview will be a 10 question interview related to possible answers for your EQ. Who do you plan to talk to and why?

- I have no idea who I should talk to for my third interview.  I am planning to get into contact with a professor of agriculture at some nearby college though.  I am steadily liking the idea of emailing a name I found after venturing into Cal Poly Pomona’s Regenerative Studies lot up above Kellogg Ranch on the hill bearing solar panels.  The name is Dr. Maryam Shafahi, and he/she is actually the advisor for an aquaponics senior project.  It is in this way that I can look into this particular waterborne approach to urban farming, and how best to complete the aquaponics component of my first Independent component.

Me in front of dragonfruit plantings near the Regenerative Studies outside/inside classroom

A possibly line of communication to my third interviewee?