Garden Based Learning Videos

Life Lab Science Program, in cooperation with the California School Garden Network, has created a Garden-Based Learning Video web site.

It is a collection of web-based videos related to garden-based learning, school gardens, and garden-based nutrition.It features School Garden Instructors teaching in their gardens, an effective outdoor instruction handout and much more.

Social Studies and Gardens

Gardens are truly a multi-disciplinary project. If you're looking for some new ways to incorporate your school garden into social studies, visit the Kids Gardening website to find some great lesson plans and activities.

Tricking Mother Nature

It seems gardeners are always looking for ways to outsmart Mother Nature and begin the growing process before it would naturally occur. Cold frames are a great option for extending the growing season, but one garden in California has gone a step further. Love Apple Farm has begun using soil heating cables that heat the area around plants to extend the growing season!

Food Miles

Here are some great activities compiled by Falls Brook Centre, a sustainable community education center, located in New Brunswick, Canada.

These activities teach your students about where their food comes from and the importance of a healthy diet. All of the activities can be altered for your geographic area.

http://bit.ly/h3mc47

Gardening in Alaska

We often think Wisconsin's short growing season is difficult to work with, but can you imagine trying to grow a garden in Alaska? Well, it's very possible. There's a great program developing in Alaska called the Schoolyard Garden Initiative. Consider contacting some of the schools that participate in this program to teach your students about different types of gardens and growing seasons!

Garden Pals: Video Exchange

It's always fun to visit other school's gardens to see their diversity of crops and their activities, but sometimes that just isn't feasible. Most teachers would love to have their students visit a garden in Guatemala to experience a different gardening culture, but most won't be able to do that.

A great option for "visiting" other school gardens is to participate in a video exchange with other schools around the state, country, or world! Wouldn't it be amazing for your students to see their video pen pals from Ecuador growing corn and then standing in a banana jungle?

All you need to create a garden video is a thriving garden and a camcorder. You can either mail the videocassettes or post the video to be shared with another school online.

What should your video show? Keep it simple and interesting--15 to 20 minutes is plenty. Let your students each narrate a small portion, introducing themselves and showing the school and the garden. You can demonstrate the garden games you play or have students talk about their garden stories.

Where can you find schools to share these videos with? If you want to share your video with schools in Wisconsin, visit the http://bit.ly/9LxKhH for the names of school gardens around the state. For a country wide or worldwide garden, simply do a google search, contact the schools you think would interest your students and begin the communication process.

Happy Traveling!

More than Pictures

In March through September of 2010, twenty six at-risk youth in residential treatment at Northwest Passage were given the mission of using cameras to reveal the spirit of the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway. The photographs astonished everyone. However, the boys captured the spirit of more than just a river.

http://bit.ly/dgP1ke

Consider having your students photograph your garden throughout the various seasons.

Grant Opportunity: 'I Can Grow' Youth Garden Award

Youth and community garden programs across the U.S. can benefit from the new Burpee Home Gardens "I Can Grow" Youth Garden Award. Applications are being considered now, and the award will sponsor and support urban school and community gardens in cities across the country in 2011.

Who should apply?
Schools and youth educators
Community centers or organizations
Youth groups

What the Youth Garden Award includes:
Up to 500 vegetable and herb plants*
$2,500 for program supplies
On-site assistance for initial garden layout and installation
Installation day event publicity coordination
Five gallons of Daniels® Plant Food (a sustainable fertilizer)
Flip® video camera to document garden progress* Quantity of plants is dependent upon size of garden and need

Applications must be postmarked no later than Friday, December 3, 2010. Award status will be determined in January 2011, and plant material will be delivered based on installation timing in Spring.
http://www.burpeehomegardens.com/ICanGrow/_YouthGardenAward.aspx

June School Garden Ideas

At the beginning of each month, the Got Dirt? WI blog features a variety of month-specific ways to incorporate your school garden into your classroom.


June means growing season here in Wisconsin.  As your garden begins to burst with produce, incorporate some of these garden activities to keep children excited and interested in the growing process!

June:  National Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Month--What a fabulous theme for the month! Celebrate an entire month of fruits/vegetables from the garden or visit your local farmers' market for more fresh produce.  Try something new each week and broaden your students' horizons.  They may be surprised at what they like!

June 5: World Environment Day--Celebrate environments near and far.  Compare and contrast the environment in your backyard to the environment in another part of the world.  How does the environment impact what you can/cannot grow in your garden?  Draw pictures of what it would look like outside the window at a school in another part of the world.  Hang these windows to the world around your classroom.

June 6: National Gardening Exercise Day--Have fun with this day and take your students outside to run, skip, jump and play in the garden.  They can imitate a plant growing by standing tall and stretching high.  Have students create a garden relay race.  Use a vegetable as a baton or have students balance a vegetable on a spoon.  No matter the activity, have students go outside and enjoy playing among fruits and vegetables!

June 10: Iced Tea Day--Take a break from all that watering, weeding, and gardening to enjoy a nice, cold glass of iced tea!

June 13: Weed Your Garden Day--Make today a work day in the garden.  Teach students the difference between weeds and plants.  Recruit volunteer to give your garden a good weeding so that you have a bountiful harvest!

June 15: Fly a Kite Day--Get outside and enjoy the summer by flying a kite!

June 16: Fresh Veggies Day--A perfect opportunity to pick vegetables from your garden and enjoy a summer snack!  If your vegetables aren't quite ready to be harvested, have each student bring a different type of vegetable to share at snack time.  Find out students' favorite fresh veggie snack!

June 17: Eat Your Vegetables Day--Another wonderful chance to have students try new and unfamiliar vegetables.  Have students tally all the vegetables they ate for the day.  Create a graph as a class to find out the most popular and/or most unusual vegetables eaten.

June 18: International Picnic Day--Go on a picnic with your class.  You can pack healthy foods from your garden or go on your picnic in the garden.  There's nothing like eating among fruits and veggies!

June 20: Father's Day--Give Dad a hug!

June 21: First Day of Summer

June 25: Eric Carle's Birthday--Read Eric Carle's The Tiny Seed, which beautifully illustrates the lifecycle of a plant.


What garden activities do you have planned for the month of June? Share them below!

Photos: Boys and Girls Club's Container Garden

I received a call today from the Boys and Girls Club of West Salem, Wisconsin.  After attending a Got Dirt? training session, they started a container garden and the kids LOVED it! 

They planted lettuce, spinach, kohlrabi, radishes, beans and carrots.

Below are a few pictures from their gardening experience...

Have you attended a Got Dirt? training session and started a garden?  Let us know and we will feature your garden photos!

School Garden Trivia

Knowledge sprouts in the garden with this trivia activity!

Materials:

• Garden stakes
• Laminated trivia/facts
• Glue

Activity:

• The history and lore of plants provide a great learning opportunity for your young gardeners.  After choosing the types of fruits and vegetables you will plant in your garden, research some fun facts about them.  
• Type or write the facts on small pieces of paper and laminate them.
• Read the facts to students or have them each share a fun fact or story.
• Attach each fact to a garden stake and place it in the garden.   Not only does it help identify what is growing but it offers a little history too.

Check out these great websites for fun facts and stories:

• Heirloom Seeds Garden Trivia
• Examples:
• "Tomatoes were originally thought to be poisonous and did not gain acceptance in the US until 1820, when Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson ate a basket full of tomatoes on the courthouse steps in Salem, New Jersey on September 26, 1820.  The assembled crowd expected to see the Colonel drop dead.  When he suffered no ill effects, the tomato was on its way to become the most popular vegetable grown by backyard gardeners today!"
• "The radish was eaten during breakfast, lunch and dinner by early American settlers.  By the late eighteenth century, at least ten varieties of radishes were popular in home gardens.  Thomas Jefferson grew eight different varieties in his own gardens at Monticello."
• Ag Day
• Examples:
• "We are eating 900% more broccoli than we did 20 years ago"
• "The bright orange color of carrots tells you they're an excellent source of Vitamin A, which is important for good eyesight, especially at night.  Vitamin A helps your body fight infection and keeps your skin and hair healthy!"

Grant: NEA's Green Across America

NEA Member Benefits and Target have joined forces to offer $50,000 worth of grants to help K-12 schools go green.

As their website explains, "NEA’s Green Across America grants of up to $1,000 are available to help you implement your innovative education program, activity, lesson or event to excite students about going green, caring for the earth and creating a sustainable future."

This is the perfect opportunity to secure funding for your school garden project!  To further help your school become green and sustainable, you can even incorporate a compost pile into your garden.

The formal grant applications will be available May 1st but the NEA Member Benefit's website features a sample worksheet to help you plan your program in the meantime.

So put on those thinking caps and start planning your project today!

April School Garden Ideas

At the beginning of each month, the Got Dirt? WI blog features a variety of month-specific ways to incorporate your school garden into your classroom.

April is full of gardening related holidays.   Use some of these ideas below to celebrate your garden.  And don't be afraid to share your own ideas!

• April: National Gardening Month: Celebrate a whole month's worth of gardening related activities.  Visit the National Gardening Association's website for some ideas. 

• April: National Mathematics Education Month: Math and gardening go hand-in-hand.  Measure the heights of plants.  Plant some seeds and estimate how many will grow.  Figure out the percentage of plants that grew.  Use fruits and veggies to demonstrate fractions.  Identify the shapes of the fruits and vegetables.  Estimate the area of a leaf.  Map out your garden and calculate its area.  The possibilities are endless!

• April: Children and Nature Awareness Month:  The goals for this year's events are first to "encourage parents to form their own Nature Clubs for Families.  And second, to invite grandparents and older outdoor enthusiasts to do their part to reconnect children and nature."  For a complete list of events in your area and for some great online resources for teachers, visit the Children and Nature Network's website. 

• April: National Humor Month: Tell gardening and fruit/vegetable jokes and riddles.  For example, What types of vegetables do you find written on a piece of music?  Give up?  Two Beets!

• April 3: Find a Rainbow Day: You may not be able to find a rainbow in the sky on "Find a Rainbow Day" but you can find one in your garden.  Have students identify fruits/veggies that match the colors of the rainbow.

• April 4-10: Garden Week: Have a whole week dedicated to gardening.  Celebrate your garden and start some plants indoors.  Invite a Master Gardener Volunteer to visit your classroom to talk about gardening.

• April 14: Look Up at the Sky Day: Go out to your garden and stare at the clouds.  Have students use their imagination to identify shapes in the clouds.  Drwa a picture of your garden and glue cotton balls to the paper for the clouds.  Don't forget to use this as an opportunity to teach what plants need to grow. 

• April 22: Earth Day:  Celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day by finding ways to help your environment.  Have students sign a pledge to be good stewards of the Earth.

• April 23: National Zucchini Bread Day: Although it's a bit early in Wisconsin to use zucchini from the garden, this is still a great opportunity to cook with fresh produce.  As a class, make zucchini bread and discuss fractions, measurement, and the importance of following a recipe in the right order.  Perhaps this will inspire you to grow zucchini in your garden!

• April 23-25: Global Youth Service Days: Participate in community service.  Donate time to your school or community garden.  Have students create a service project that starts your school garden.  It is a great way to get students involved and ensure that the project gets off the ground.  Check out your Got Dirt? Toolkit for more information about using school gardens as service learning opportunities.

• April 26-30: School Building Week: "Celebrating our nation's school and reinforcing the connection between school facilitates and student learning...School Building Week provides an opportunity to draw national attention to the importance of well planned, healthy, high performance, safe and sustainable schools that enhance student achieve and community vitality."  Click here for more information.  Use this week to evaluation the sustainability of your school and identify areas that need improvement.

• April 27: Tell a Story Day: Read garden and fruit and veggie stories and have children write their own stories.

• April 29: Greenery Day: A day in remembrance of the birthday of Japanese Emperor Hirohito.  The day is a time to commune with nature and be thankful.  Go outside and explore where you will put your garden.  Start to prepare your garden for planting.  Have students imagine what it will look like in the summer when everything is growing.  As a class, research some of the cultural differences between the United States and Japan (for example: what grows in a typical Japanese garden?).

There is plenty going on during the month of April.  What do you plan to do to celebrate these fun holidays?  Share your ideas below!

Activity: Got Dirt? T-Shirts

With this fun and easy activity, children will make their own Got Dirt? gardening t-shirts.  The t-shirts will be perfect to wear while working out in the garden.

Materials

• T-shirts
• Fabric paints
• Paint brushes, sponges, etc.
• Water
• Paper towels
• Permanent Marker

Activity

• Before having students decorate the t-shirt, write each child's name on the t-shirt using a permanent marker.
• Give each student a t-shirt, some fabric paints and paint brushes.
• Have each student decorate their t-shirt with pictures of fruits and vegetables that will be in the garden.
• Don't forget to have them write "Got Dirt?" on the t-shirt!
• Place the completed t-shirts in a safe place to dry before wearing.

After decorating the t-shirts, students can wear them while working in the garden.  Students will enjoy wearing the t-shirts and parents will like that the students' regular clothes aren't getting muddy!


Work Cited:
Thumb Print Garden T-Shirts

Activity: Making Seed Packets

Teaching students what plants need to grow is an important lesson that can accompany any school gardening project.

Materials

• Paper
• Markers, crayons, etc.
• Seeds
• Glue or staples
• Research materials, if applicable

Activity

• To make the seed packet, have each student take a piece of 8 1/2" x 11" paper and fold it in half.  Glue the edges of the paper together expect for one edge at the top.  The unglued edge will be where you add your seeds.
• Instruct students to decorate their seed packets by drawing a picture of their fruit/vegetable and writing the name of the fruit/vegetable on one side.  Students can either invent their own fruit or vegetable or research real fruits and vegetables.
• On the other side of the packet, students should write the planting and growing instructions for their plant.  For example:
• What does the plant need to grow? 
• How/where should it be planted?
• What will it look like once it grows?
• How long will it take to grow?
• Once students are done decorating their seed packets, add seeds and seal it by gluing the remaining edge.

School Garden Grant Opportunities

Spring is almost here and so is a new crop of school garden grant opportunities. 

Bayer Advance: Forever Growing Garden Poster Contest

• Who: K-12 students
• What: Create a poster that represents how gardens have changed over time, and the positive impact that gardens have on individuals, communities and the planet.
• Deadline: April 15, 2010
• Prize: $1,500 grand prize and two $250 honorable mentions
• Details: Click here for a poster describing the contest and here for additional details, guidelines, etc.

Adopt-a-Plant for Your Classroom Project

• What: Include a plant in your classroom and have students come up with a creative name for it.  Sign an "adoption" certificate with the plant's name and take a picture of your class with your plant.
• Deadline: March 19, 2010 <--Put on those thinking caps! This deadline is coming up quickly
• Prize: $50 to start a classroom garden
• Details: Additional details, including the "adoption" certificate can be found here

The above grants are made possible through GEF, the Green Education Foundation.  Their website features lots of useful resources, lesson plans, and ideas.  Be sure to check it out!

Nature Hills Nursery Green America Award

• Who: Groups/organizations making a difference in the community by improving the environment.
• What: The project's goal is to help communities create an environmental oasis, such as a community or school garden.
• Deadline: April 1, 2010
• Prize: Grand Prize: $2,500 of plant materials (such as trees, shrubs, perennials, and vegetables seeds); First Place: $1,500 of plant materials; Second Place: $1,000 of plant materials
• Details: Check out the Nature Hills Nursery website for additional application information.

Got Dirt? Garden Initiative Evaluation Assistance Grant

• Who: Teachers and childcare providers who have attended a Got Dirt? training session. 
• What: Two classes will participate in the grant.  One class will participate in a school gardening project and the other class will act as a "control" group by not participating in any gardening.  Both groups will complete surveys.
• Deadline: Rolling application process
• Prize: $400 towards starting a new school garden
• Details: Additional details available on the Got Dirt? website

Dreaming of Spring!

Spring is in the air, which can only mean one thing!  It's time to brush off those gardening gloves, gather your tools, pick an assortment of seeds, and start planning your school garden!

While our fellow gardeners across the country may already be digging in the dirt, this is Wisconsin after all, and we all know that we will probably see snow before it is officially spring.

However, it doesn't mean that we can't dream about our soon-to-be garden! 

Have you started planning your school garden? If so, what will you plant?  How many children will be involved in your school garden?  Are your students excited?

Or, do you have questions as you plan your school garden?  No problem! Leave a comment below and one of your fellow school gardeners may have the perfect solution to your problem!

If you're a school gardening pro, what advice do you have for beginning school gardeners?

To date, we have had more than 300 teachers and childcare providers attend training sessions to learn to start a school garden.  We're hoping that school gardens will start sprouting up across the state!

Share your grand plans and school garden dreams below!

Getting Parents Involved in School Gardens

Parents can be a vital asset to the success of your school garden.  I was recently asked how to involve parents in a school garden project and thought I would share a few suggestions. 

Feel free to add your own thoughts and suggestions in the comment section below.

• Have parents donate gardening tools. Parents may have extra tools lying around that they don’t need. Donations save money instead of having to buy new tools. Parents can put their names on tools and pick them up after the gardening season is over.  By donating tools, parents will feel more invested in the project.

• Invite parents to help plant/care for/harvest the garden. Create a volunteer schedule. Send information home in a letter or newsletter; provide specific tasks so parents know how to get involved.

• Host a garden party.  It can be a planting/harvesting party where everyone works in the garden.  Or simply invite parents to tour the garden.  Students can show the parents around and tell them what they have learned.  Again, seeing the children get excited may encourage parents to pitch in.

• Invite parents to plan the garden. Involve them in the process early on to make them feel invested.

• Allow students to take fresh produce home. It may get parents more excited about the garden.

• Invite a parent to come in and cook with produce from the garden.

• Invite a parent to come in and read a children’s book about gardening.  Click here for a list of recommended books.

• If a parent is a gardener, have the students interview him/her and ask for advice/tips for their garden.   

• Don't forget about your PTA/PTO organization, which can be a great resource for funding ideas or volunteers!

March School Garden Ideas

At the beginning of each month, the Got Dirt? WI blog will feature a variety of month-specific ways to incorporate your school garden into your classroom.

It's the beginning of March, which means spring is on its way! Below are some suggestions for incorporating a garden into your classroom for the month of March.

• March 1-May 3: The Great American Cleanup--A time to beautify parks and recreation areas, plant trees and flowers, and pick up litter.  Take this time to clean up your local park or start to prepare your outdoor garden for planting.

• March 11: Johnny Appleseed Day--Read a story about Johnny Appleseed and have an apple-themed day.  Taste different types of apples, discuss how apples grow, and make apple art!

• March 17: St. Patrick's Day--You may have heard of a fairy garden, but why not create a leprechaun garden!  Think miniature! Have children imagine the leprechauns in the garden and write a story about their mischievous ways!

• March 20: National Agriculture Day--Discuss Agriculture in Wisconsin.  Invite a farmer or gardener to visit your class.  Have students eat food made in Wisconsin.  Discuss all of the ways that agriculture impacts us daily.

• March 26: Make Up Your Own Holiday Day--Have students brainstorm ideas for a new holiday and what they would do to celebrate it.  Get creative and use it as a day to celebrate your garden!

• March 30: Take a Walk in the Park Day--Go for a walk and identify different types of plants.  Identify trees and their plant parts.  Walk through your garden and have students plan what they want to plant.

Do you have ideas on how to incorporate a garden into the classroom? We'd love to hear your ideas! Share below!

Garden Songs

This great website features gardening related songs and finger plays for young children.  The lyrics are adorable and would perfect for teaching young children about gardening and what plants need to grow. 

Here's just one example:

I'll plant a little seed in the dark, dark ground.
Out comes the yellow sun, big and round.
Down comes the cool rain, soft and slow.
Up comes the little seed, grow, grow, grow!

Check out the website and enjoy!