Anna's Class Notes

With the change in seasons it came time to revisit the chestnuts that have been quietly waiting in the cold of our classroom refrigerator. We recalled what we knew about chestnuts and predicted what we would see inside them after sitting undisturbed in the cold for three months. I dissected a few extra chestnuts that we did not plan on planting and the students observed and recorded what they found inside. They were able to discern the structure of the baby plant inside the seed, which is called the embryo. They also noticed the lighter area on the outside of the chestnut where it had been attached to the spiky shell (burr), of its mother tree. We discussed how this part of the seed, called the hilum, is somewhat similar to the scar we have where we were attached to our mothers inside their bellies. That’s the scar we call our bellybutton!

Our chestnut restoration mentor, April Gonzalez, paid us a visit to help us give a good start to our sprouting seeds. April and a few members of her landscaping crew met us in the area where we will eventually plant some trees outside on campus. We learned a bit about the history of our native soil and how good it is for growing crops, especially potatoes. April taught us about and gave us several organic and sustainable additions to our soil to create a potting mix for the chest- nuts. She gave us coconut coir, a byproduct of the food industry, and eel grass, a local seaweed that indigenous people have used for thousands of years to mulch and fertilize crops in our area. We also added fishbone meal, of which some brave students wanted to take a sniff. “It smells like the beach,” was one comment. We planted our chestnuts in recycled milk cartons, reused plastic plant pots, terracotta pots, and pots made of recycled newspaper.