University of Puerto Rico at Ponce

English Department

Memorandum:
Date: December 8, 2022
To: Professor Pier A. LeCompte Zambrana
From: Soannette M. Santiago, Daliana V. Pagan, Luis A. Santiago, and Esteban J. Rivera
Progress Report of “Huerto Atabey”

Introductory Summary
To continue advancing their professional and personal development, all biology students
are required to enroll in a technical writing course. In contrast to the typical essays and assignments
that students are given in other classes, this course aims to educate students on how to write and
construct technical documents. Students are expected to develop proper writing techniques and
apply all technical writing regulations during the course. As part of the technical writing course,
the students serve eight service hours in the Atabey Garden at the University of Puerto Rico at
Ponce. The students are responsible for writing a progress report for this project that will include
all the work they accomplished in the garden throughout the semester.

A group of four students has redacted this report: Soannette M. Santiago Santiago, Daliana
V. Pagán Rodríguez, Luis A. Santiago Amundaray, and Esteban J. Rivera Muñoz. The group
decided to perform service hours both individually and collectively. This project aims to learn
about the significance of agriculture, and the objectives of groups like “Coalición de Estudiantes
Pro-Agricultura” (CEPA) and promote the importance of gardens and the creation of home
gardens. Aside from this, our main purpose is to create a progress report and put all the technical
writing principles we have learned into practice with this experience as part of the course.

Coalición de Estudiantes Pro-Agricultura (CEPA)

On April 16, 2014, CEPA was established as a student organization at the University of Puerto
Rico in Ponce. The goal of this initiative is to enhance public awareness of the need to move
quickly to improve local food production to an ideal level that is close to self-sufficiency. Their
goal is for more students to start their gardens and work toward a future of self-sufficiency. Board
members guided the students while they worked in the garden. The association's board of directors
is made up of:
• President: Miguel Costas
• Vice-president: Priscilla Cintrón
• Secretary: Arelis Acevedo
• Sub-secretary: Yahaira Roda
• Treasurer: Francisco Castro
• Public relations officer: Alejandra Medina
• Historian: Jadey Negrón

CEPA has created the Atabey Garden which is located at The University of Puerto Rico at
Ponce. With this, CEPA has the objective of promoting the need for gardens and self-sufficiency
in food production. Aside from this, CEPA aims to teach students the principles of creating a
garden and the principles of different types of plants that students will work with. Our group was
tasked with conducting a total of 32 hours of service in the Atabey Garden, where we completed
different tasks and learned the principles of creating and maintaining a garden.

Work Completed and Group Contribution

The members of our group had a great experience working at the Atabey garden with the
guidance of Miguel Costas Sabatier, current president of CEPA. We conducted a total of 33 service
hours and performed different types of tasks to improve the garden.

The activities performed were:

I. Grass cutting and weed removal- Throughout the whole semester the members of our
group helped with grass cutting and weed removal during the semester. As time passed,
we observed how weed removal and grass cutting helped in the garden. This is an
essential part of caring for gardens, since the presence of weeds reduces yields, raises
production costs, impedes harvesting, and degrades the product quality. Additionally,
 weeds hinder the flow of irrigation water, obstruct the administration of pesticides, and
harbor pathogens.

II. Irrigation- Throughout the semester the group assisted in watering the garden, and
CEPA stressed the value of irrigation. CEPA explained that agriculture needs irrigation
because it moistens the plants, which aids in the transportation of vital nutrients, and
because the water dilutes salts and promotes plant growth. As time passed we saw the
effect of watering the garden effectively and observed the growth of the plants over
time.

III. Building a medicinal garden- In the month of November, the group worked on the study
and construction of plant species used for medicinal purposes. We planted tobacco and
lavender which in time will produce plants that will be used for medicinal purposes.

IV. Organizing- During the semester, we took time to organize all the different donations
in the storage, which helped make soil, plants, and tools easier to locate.

V. Donating- As part of our service hours, we donated a total of 24 soil bags to keep the
garden working. We also donated different types of plants to seed in the garden.

Limitations
Every group member ran into obstacles to accomplishing the required service hours at the
Atabey Garden at the UPRP. The limitation that Soannette encountered was dividing her time
between classes, volleyball practices, and completing the service hours with CEPA. Daliana also
encountered limitations because she got sick for a few weeks, while Esteban and Luis were
dividing their time between conducting research at the university and working in the Atabey
garden.

As for limitations in the garden, we ran across several obstacles during the semester when
trying to produce plants, especially therapeutic ones. At the beginning of the semester, the soil in
the Atabey garden was dry and needed to be treated with water and a variety of fertilizers, which
took a while before starting to seed plants. However, the main limitation we encountered was time.
Creating and maintaining a garden takes a lot of time, and we could only do so much in a single
semester. Hopefully, after the Christmas break, we can see our hard labor results and the plants
growing more and more as time goes by.

Recommendations
The CEPA organization has admirable goals and objectives and an outstanding team
supporting those goals. Students and the campus will benefit from the work being done, and there
is still space to improve this organization. We offer the following suggestions:
• Promote the organization more during the school year.
• Create monthly workshops in the Atabey Garden to teach students about the garden and
the organization’s goals.
• Recruit students to increase the number of maintenance personnel.
• Provide students with different ways to help with the garden.

Conclusion

During the semester, great work was conducted on the Atabey Garden. We are pleased
for being able to help lend another hand to CEPA and the other students in maintaining and
improving the conditions of the Atabey Garden. Our group was able to cut grass and remove
weeds, water the plants, build medicinal gardens, organize the storage, and donate soil and plants
to the garden to keep it moving one step further as each day goes by. This work in Atabey
Garden also allowed us to practice all the concepts learned during the semester of technical
writing by producing a progress report of the contributions to the garden.

In this report, we highlighted our most important contributions to the Atabey Garden as
well as some limitations we faced during the semester. We also give some recommendations to
make the experience better and how to expand the project. Through making this report, we
gained a better understanding of agriculture and the purpose of the tasks we performed during
the semester.
 Appendix:
Service Logs, Student Reflections, and garden photos.
 S E L F - R E F L E C T I O N O N P R O J E C T W O R K
Think about what you did in this project, and how well the project went.
Write your comments in the right column.

Student Name: Esteban J Rivera Muñoz

Project Name: Progress Report Atabey Garden

Driving Question:
How can we contribute to the project of Atabey Garden?

List the major steps of the

project: ·      Contact members of CEPA to get involved in the Atabey Garden activities.
·      Attend to days of maintenance of Atabey Garden.
·      Hand in donations to the people of CEPA.
·      Record the activities the group did to create the progress report.

About Yourself:
What is the most important
thing you learned in this
project:
I learned about the importance of agriculture, and all the aspects that go into building a
garden. The most important thing I learned about this is the fact that building a garden
is entirely possible if you put the work in. It is not as simple as it seems, and although it
is hard work it is entirely possible to do this at home.

What do you wish you had
spent more time on or done
differently:
What part of the project did
you do your best work on:
I wish I spent more time understanding the difference between all
types of plants and seeds that we worked with and why they are
important to keep.
My best work in the garden was the medicinal garden. In this small
garden, only medicinal plants were seeded. These plants will be used
for medical purposes and will contribute to improving someone’s life.

About the Project:

What was the most The most enjoyable part of the project was learning more about agriculture
enjoyable part of this and seeing the progress of the work we did in the garden. Seeing the plants
grow and the garden take shape is a great motivation to keep going back.
project:

What was the least The least enjoyable part of the project was removing weeds with
enjoyable part of this our bare hands and dealing with the mosquitoes in the garden.
project:

How could your teacher(s)

change this project to make To make the project better, I think that there should be more
it better next time: communication between the students and the professor
during the semester about how the project and the
experience at the garden are going.

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 S E L F - R E F L E C T I O N O N P R O J E C T W O R K
Think about what you did in this project, and how well the project went.
Write your comments in the right column.

Student Name: Soannette Marie Santiago Santiago

Project Name: Progress Report: Atabey Garden

Driving Question:
How can we contribute to the projects of Atabey Garden?

List the major steps of the

project: 1. Contact member of CEPA to get involved in Atabey Garden activities.
2. Attend to days of maintenance of Atabey Garden.
3. Hand in donations to the people of CEPA.
4. Record the activities the group did to create the progress report.

About Yourself:
What is the most important This project was my opportunity to get involved with agriculture. This is a new
thing you learned in this thing for me, so I learned the importance of taking care of nature, and
project: specifically the attention that a garden needs to be productive.

What do you wish you had I would have liked to receive more background information of each task that was
spent more time on or done being completed. I wish that on other opportunity, I pay more attention to the
differently: project so I get greater knowledge about this field.

What part of the project did There are two tasks in which I gave my best. These are cleaning the garden with
you do your best work on: a hoe and removing weeds. After I noticed the garden need this process to have
a productive soil, I put all my effort to complete these tasks.

About the Project:

What was the most The most enjoyable part of the project for me was to share this experiences with my
enjoyable part of this friends and classmates because we had fun at the same time we complete the tasks.
project:

What was the least

The least enjoyable part of the project was not to see the result of all our effort.
enjoyable part of this Also, the day of cleaning the garden with hoe was a nightmare for me because of
project: its difficulty.

How could your teacher(s)

change this project to make
An aspect that can be changed for making better this project is to do the
it better next time:
progress report before finishing the class reunions to have the direct support of
the professor during the process.

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 S E L F - R E F L E C T I O N O N P R O J E C T W O R K
Think about what you did in this project, and how well the project went.
Write your comments in the right column.

Student Name: Luis A. Santiago Amundaray

Project Name: Atabey garden
Driving Question:
How can we contribute to the project of the Atabey garden?

List the major steps of the 1. Contact members of CEPA to get involved in Atabey
project: Garden activities.
2. Attend to days of maintenance of Atabey Garden.
3. Hand in donations to the people of CEPA.
4. Record the activities the group did to create the
progress report.

About Yourself:
What is the most important The most important thing that I learned is the importance of working as a team.
thing you learned in this It is almost impossible to keep a garden alive without having a team with the
same goal, trying to do their best to get to the goal. Being able to know people
project: with different interests helped me appreciate different perspectives and values.
 
I wish I had spent more time seeding and working with the process of taking care of
What do you wish you had the tobacco plants. I’m interested in tobacco; it has been one of the most sold
spent more time on or done products in the world. I would like to conduct some experiments to compare the
differently: quality of the tobacco used for cigarettes by big companies and the one that we can
grow at the university.
The part of the project that I did my best work on was building the medicinal
What part of the project did garden. The medicinal garden had a different way of seeding the plants, it had a
you do your best work on: helical form which helped the plants to grow faster. I was interested in it, and I
did my best work while building The part of the project that I did my best work
on was building the medicinal garden.
About the Project:
What was the most The most enjoyable part of the project was learning about agriculture with all my
enjoyable part of this classmates and understanding that every day we have a lot to learn. As teammates,
we can help us understand the different concepts to be able to perform the
project: techniques at the highest level.

What was the least
enjoyable part of this
project:
How could your teacher(s)
change this project to make
it better next time:
The least enjoyable part of the project was removing the weeds with bare hands,
using our bare hands was the easiest option keeping in mind the size of the weed.
The weed was growing too fast, and we had to keep the garden area clean of them,
so they didn’t compete with the food source of the plant with medicinal plants that
were our focus.
The professor can change some aspects of the project as:
·      Changing the work time from eight hours to four.
·      Creating a way to support collaborative learning at the atabey garden.
·      Communicating with students to ask about their experience with CEPA
during the semester.

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 S E L F - R E F L E C T I O N O N P R O J E C T W O R K
Think about what you did in this project, and how well the project went.
Write your comments in the right column.

Student Name:
Daliana V. Pagán Rodríguez
Project Name: Progress Report Atabey Garden
Driving Question:
How can we contribute to the project Atabey Garden?

List the major steps of the

project: 1. Contact member of CEPA to get involved in Atabey Garden activities.
2. Attend to days of maintenance of Atabey Garden.
3.Hand in donations to the people of CEPA.
4. Récord the activities the group did to create the progress report.

About Yourself:
What is the most important The most significant lesson I took away from this project was just how much agriculture
thing you learned in this can provide for society in various ways. Additionally, we ought to preserve the
project: environment around us so that it can continue to bear fruit for our benefit in the future

What do you wish you had In order to contribute to the garden’s planting and maintenance, I would have preferred to
spent more time on or done spend more time working on this project.
differently:

What part of the project did I spent the most time working on the weeding portion of the project. It was the most
you do your best work on:
difficult job of them all because you had to be cautious near other plants.

About the Project:

What was the most Working with my classmates and getting to know other classmates was the most enjoyable
enjoyable part of this aspect of the assignment. We forged ties to unite as students in addition to advancing
project: agriculture.

What was the least The work-related mosquito bites and the soil conditions if it had rained a few days earlier
enjoyable part of this were the least enjoyable aspects.
project:

How could your teacher(s)

change this project to make Only the maintenance days would I modify about this idea; I understand that only Tuesdays
it better next time: and Thursdays isn't enough time to keep a garden in good shape.

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Figure 1: Soannette, Daliana, and Luis plowing soil using a hoe. (November 3,
2022)
Figures 2 and 3: Esteban, Luis, and Soannette creating a medicinal
garden and seeding plants. (November 15, 2022)
Figure 4: Daliana plowing soil using a hoe. (November 29, 2022)