Planting the seeds of science: the school garden - a perfect laboratory for teaching science

Instructor, March, 1999 by Pam Mohrmann

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?" Students from Alaska to Florida are learning the fascinating answers to this question by working in gardens found just beyond their classroom walls - school gardens teachers have initiated to provide children with unbeatable hands-on learning environments.

Imagine your students harvesting beets from your school's garden to duplicate the cloth-dying process employed by early settlers. Picture them growing rabbit tobacco (lavender) to appreciate better the stories of Beatrix Potter. And think about how much more they'll get out of a craft activity using gourds they have cultivated themselves. Gardens offer an amazing range of cross-curriculum teaching possibilities.

They are perfect laboratories where scientific concepts literally come to life. Lessons in biology, the scientific method, interdependence, and meteorology take place in an authentic environment that stimulates curiosity in a way textbook learning simply can't. Kids will thrive academically as they graph the growth of their plants, track weather to deter mine the best planting times, discover optimum growing conditions for different plants, landscape with native plants, and study butterflies and birds attracted to the garden. And while youngsters are enthusiastically involved in their gardening, acquiring skills that will bring a lifetime of enjoyment, you will be meeting state and national science standards.

Five years ago I began working with my colleagues at Dow's Prairie Elementary in McKinleyville, California, to plant a school garden. Many of us were home gardeners, and we wanted to bring the joy of gardening - and its learning benefits - to children. To make our dream a reality, we involved students, parents, and other community members in all aspects of the garden, from the initial planning and construction to maintenance and expansion. Through the years, our garden has changed considerably to meet shifting needs, but it has always breathed new life into our curriculum and provided a refreshing oasis at our school.

Grow Your Own Garden

With spring approaching, it's the perfect time to consider adding a garden to your school site. While there are probably as many ways to go about creating one as there are seed catalogs, these guidelines should keep you on track.

Establish a garden team to help you. To balance the workload, brainstorm logistics, and keep one another motivated, it's crucial to have a core of staff members working on a project this ambitious. Each person should have specific duties. One person, for example, can be responsible for gathering information on garden projects, another for building community support, a third for publishing a newsletter, and a fourth for digging up science activities for your garden-science curriculum.

Visit school gardens in your area. Seeing different garden designs, then discussing educational uses for them and how they are maintained, will encourage your garden team and help you decide what's best for your site. You will learn from the gardening successes and mistakes of other schools and establish a network with other teachers. If you are unable to locate such a school in your area, visit the E-Mail Pals Growing Network Web site (see "School Gardening Resources," on page 28), where teachers involved in all phases of school gardening are happy to share what they've learned.

Write a clear plan. Developing a plan that reflects the needs of your individual school will focus your efforts and make it easier to enlist the support of others. It's essential to break the plan down into major phases and smaller tasks. The goal for our first phase at Dow's Prairie was to build one 4[feet] by 10[feet] garden box for each classroom in the school. Your first phase may be to add gardening boxes or barrels to a corner of the playground or to develop a single gardening plot for the entire school. Once the first phase is achieved and students begin gardening, reassess your plan, make necessary adjustments, and proceed to the next phase. For instance, a classroom studying insects may wish to create a butterfly garden, or a science class may need a greenhouse in which to conduct additional plant experiments. When planning, keep in mind:

* How your staff intends to use the garden.

* Where children will be moving within the garden and the pathways necessary to handle high-traffic areas.

* Wheelchair access.

* Room for expansion beyond your first phase (compost bins, greenhouses, butterfly gardens, ponds, herb gardens, and so on).

* Where to keep tools and supplies so they are readily accessible.

* Water systems and fencing needs.

Raise Funding and secure resources. Once you have a plan, explore sources of funds and materials. Some, like Youth Gardening Grants (available through the National Gardening Association; see page 28), schoolwide fund-raisers, and community donations, can provide true "seed" money for your project. Nurseries, hardware stores, and other local businesses may donate supplies or offer discounts. For our garden, wood, soil, and fertilizer were contributed by local businesses. You can add donors' names to a plaque at the entrance of your garden as a lasting thank-you and as an incentive for other members of the community to get involved.