Rain to Drain - Slow the Flow {Community Based Unit}

Drilling a hole into the barrel

The Community Based Unit (CBU) that was implemented during my student teaching internship was called Rain to Drain - Slow the Flow. The inspiration for this CBU came through an email sent over the list serve. The topic aligned with the Introduction to Agriculture class's Water World unit. I set the unit up that every Wednesday would be CBU day. There was a lot I learned through this process, but the end result was well worth it.

Putting the CBU day on Wednesday seemed great in January but I have a lot of regrets sitting here in April. With snow days and multiple day labs Wednesday quickly became a hassle. I was always rearranging the CBU days which resulted in lack of interest and understanding from students. This was the biggest hurdle, student interest and purpose.  If I was to implement this CBU again, I would take 1-2 weeks and make it a short unit. There was a lot of disconnect with the students the purpose and knowledge I wanted them to obtain. 

The gem of this was the hands on lab with Cumberland County's Conservation District. Mr. McCollum, a Technician for the Conservation district came into the class and talked about rain water within the community and how rain barrels helped. One week later he came back and we built the rain barrels. Prior to this day I taught a shop safety lesson and the class and I read through the directions for putting together rain barrels. The class is mostly underclassmen and they vary in shop and tool abilities. The students were broken out into 4 groups of 6 people that were assigned. We completed the 4 rain barrels in approximately 40 minutes which I found phenomenal.

I really enjoyed creating and implementing the CBU. It was one of the units that I needed to prepare the most for and caused a lot of extra planning, but working with Mr. McCollum and having the opportunity to see some of my students who have never worked with tools, smile and enjoy theirselves making rain barrels was worth it.

Period 2 - Rain Barrels Complete