Service Learning Reflection by Hiu Nam (Tiger) Wong

1. I attended the Campus Community Farm Workparty event on February 9th, from 12:00 pm to 3:00 pm, which in total that is 3 hours of volunteer work. Even the event organizer was not at the event, his/her contact information is provided, that is nhu.tran@email.edcc.edu. While it is not clearly stated, I believe the school sponsored this activity, and their goal through this event is to allow students to learn more about food issues, sustainability, nutrition, and promote gardening skills. During the 3 hours, I first watered some plants, then cleared up weeds around the farmland, at the same time collected certain weed leaves such as mulches and stacked them up.
2. 

Figure 1. Plants planted in a green house to withstand stronger wind. Figure 2. Strawberry plants and replanting strawberry plants.

1. This event certainly bring new insight to me with regards to farm work, and made me more interested in related activities. Before attending to the farm workparty, my knowledge on farming is very limited, I would think farming is simply planting and harvesting. In fact, there are much more preparation work have to be done, in order for a farm to run nicely. Therefore, after trying to do a tiny portion of what the do on a daily basis, I now have more appreciation to all the farmers out there after attending the event. The role of science in our daily lives is greater than what we think, in short, I feel like everything that happens is based on and influenced by scientific factors. For example, farmers want to eliminate weeds as they will fight for nutrients with their crops, or we stacked the pile of weeds to increase the weight and compressed weed to the ground for better decomposition. Everything we do is based on science. With the work I did during the event, not only did I helped clean up the farm, but I believe I helped achieved sustainable development within the farm, by gathering and reusing resources. 
2. During the 3 hours, I observed there to be plenty of dead plants. More specifically, as I was replanting strawberries, the strawberry plants located off the main row of plants are more likely to be dead. I believe this has to do with the difference in water resources received by the plant, as the one in the middle have a higher chance of being watered, while the one located far away are more likely to be missed when watering. As a result, the one being watered are favored to survive with more sufficient water supply. Moreover, I performed weeding during the event, which I think is crucial for growing crops. In relation to biology, weeds and the crops are competing for nutrients in soil, and can potentially result in evolution of either the weeds or the crops. To be specific, by taking away weeds, we allow the crops to have more sufficient nutrients for growth. If say, weeds have a better ability to absorb nutrients from soil, they grow better and faster than the crops, while the crops will have very limited nutrients absorbed from soil. Eventually, some features in crops may be developed for them to have a better chance to obtain nutrients, resulting in evolution. Biology is interdisciplinary. As mentioned earlier, we stacked weeds into piles, doing so, we incorporated physics in biology. We used the heavier weight to push down the weeds into the ground, then forces decomposition to occur more rapidly. 
3. Questions:

1. Why are weeds not beneficial to crops?
   
   
2. What causes decomposition?
   
   
3. What will speed up the process of decomposition?
   
   
4. In what ways, could evolution happen in a farm setting?