The Baldwin Hills Greenhouse Program Leaps Into the Age of Online Learning

By Emily Cobar & Edgar Pedroza

Friday, March 13th, 2020 was the last in-person workday of the Baldwin Hills Greenhouse Program. Given the chaos of school closure announcements and the rainy weather that day, just a handful of students showed up. We sat on up-turned orange buckets in the greenhouse, surrounded by the plants we had grown from seeds and those that we had planned to install in the park. We talked about what the future of the Greenhouse Program might be for the rest of the school year. Despite the anxiety and uncertainty that permeated that hour-long conversation, students made it clear that they wanted to keep the Greenhouse Program going, even if it meant meeting for virtual workdays.

The following week I sent a digital survey out to the entire group of Greenhouse students, well over forty of them. Staff needed to know not only the interest-level of the group, but also the level of access that our students had to technology and internet. As many recent media pieces have pointed out in the last month, online learning is fraught with equity issues. Students overwhelmingly responded that they would be willing to attend online Greenhouse Workdays if we offered them, and a clutter of devices would be used to tune in as best they could.

Los Angeles Audubon itself was fortunate to have access to online platforms and training sessions through West Los Angeles College (WLAC). The Greenhouse Program is currently linked to WLAC’s new Conservation Studies Program (more about that in a future newsletter article), and I was able to up my tech literacy in Zoom hosting and online course shell development. Los Angeles Audubon staff met repeatedly to strategize, each of us reduced to little Zoom rectangles on our laptops. How on earth do we translate hands-on, nature-based learning to an online class format? At a time when some of our students, like many in our city, will be drawn into the vortex economic and health insecurity, how can we best support them within the context of our education program?

In the space of just two weeks we made the abrupt transition from a no-screens program philosophy to being all about screens. We’re learning as we go, and each week presents a new challenge. At the time of this writing, we’ve completed three weeks of Greenhouse Virtual Workdays. Most importantly, students show up. We all try to find ways to connect with one another and nature as best we can. At our last session, students completed nature observations at their homes. Not everyone has a backyard of their own, but it’s springtime, and nature gleefully smacks you in the face with pollen, bugs, and birdsong as soon as you step outside right now. The collage in this article is the result of what students saw in just one fifteen-minute observation session.

At the end of the formal virtual workday activities, we leave the Zoom session going for students to socialize. Greenhouse students come from multiple campuses, and students build friendships across what can sometimes be very segregated geography in Los Angeles. Students linger, the conversation is lively, and heated debates about anime ensue. Thematically, students’ Zoom socializing is not appreciably different from their in-person socializing. But, conspicuously - painfully - absent from Zoom session socializing are the arm-punches, the hugs, all the physical hallmarks of high school friendship. The students miss the physical presence of their friends.

We’re still not sure when we’ll all be able to meet again in person to dig holes, wrestle chrysanthemum out of restoration areas, and survey for birds. For now though, I will take Virtual Greenhouse any day over no Greenhouse.

Images for our April 14th stay-at-home nature collage were contributed by the following Baldwin Hills Greenhouse students: Abril Sernas, Ahmad Rizwan, Akari Johnston, Axel Maya, Ayanna Higgins, Azul Calderon, Bianca Mayoraga, Bruno De Leon, Denny Lorenzano, Eddie Acevedo, Emily Garcia, Eva Gibbs Zehnder, Isabella Kelly, James Lopez, Sasha Holland, Savannah House, Sienna Koizumi, Sophia Nicklas, Vera Fang, Vivien Adler.