Develop Living Classrooms

The nature of a Living Classroom puts educational enrichment directly in the hands of students. Philosophies surrounding the concept of a Living Classroom push institutions and teachers to re-integrate those pieces of laboratory, horticulture, art/music studio, kitchen, and home into a typical classroom environment so that activities might be lived daily (in depth) rather than waiting for the occasional lesson design to superficially splash students with a few novel concepts. Routine encounters with the learning opportunities creates the seeding ground for visceral development to take place. Living Classrooms are all about longitudinal growth and pursuit of depth of learning as evinced in greater degree of sophistication with reflection and inquiry. Students nurtured in Living Classrooms see the world at large as a learning moment about to happen; learning is not fabricated it is embraced.

Living Classroom activities promote cross-curricular learning and reinforcement of academic content. Literacy and Numeracy are crucial for students to attain any level of autonomous learning. Originateve seeks to foster skills of learning how to learn. Therefore, imagination, inquiry and communication, at the heart of critical thinking, occupy the primary focus of lesson goals and objectives due to the organism they fertilize. Open-ended questioning is a habit for the mentor to encourage divergent thinking and allow for authentic formative assessment from the variant successes of every learner’s unique perspectives and gifts.

Additionally, socialization and emotional intelligence is intentionally addressed, monitored and assessed.

Build Ethnobotany Skills

Ethnobotany is the study of plants and their social and cultural relationship with people. Aspects of ethnobotany include: folk medicine, food preparation, plant appearances in mythology and cultural story, and plant uses in ritual.

Cross-Curricular Instructional Design

Originateve works to connect age-appropriate academic content and curricular goals with social/emotional development within the cultivation and maintenance of a living classroom. This goal is accomplished by stacking and/or wrapping multiple, and often corresponding open-ended goals into a relevant learning session. We call this a ‘multidimensional lesson design’.

Community Interactive Gardens

Originateve works with schools, students and parents to:

• develop relationship with a variety of wild, cultivated, native, naturalized and invasive plants that are common in local ecologies

• understand the biome of the soil and how to cultivate healthy growing environments

• understand companion planting

• expose participants to a number of ethnobotanical native mythological stories involving habitat and plants

• create a hands-on laboratory environment where participants are free to explore wild- craft engineering using upcycled materials.

Staff Development 

Originateve builds custom staff trainings for continuing education around Holistic Learning and Regenerative Practices.