Applicable Grades K-2

Come out to the gardens twice this year for this two-part program!

Program Description:

In spring, your students will learn about gardening firsthand! They will learn the parts of a plant, what they need to grow and what kind of work goes into planting a garden. With help from our staff, students will work the soil, plant some vegetable seeds, and water them in one of our raised bed vegetable gardens. They will also have the opportunity to plant some pumpkin seeds in our Pumpkin Hill Garden – the students will harvest these veggies and pumpkins in fall!  We will also spend time in the Children’s Education Farm's ‘Pollinator Pen’, where we can have a conversation about the role of our local pollinators and why they are crucial for fruits and veggies to grow. We will also do a sorting activity involving our composting machine, where students will learn how to determine if something can be composted or not. 

In fall, part two of this program will involve harvesting the crops that the students planted in the springtime. The students will each be able to take one pumpkin and a small bag of veggies home with them. This second part of the program will also involve taking a trip to our Educational Bee Shed to further discuss pollinators, especially related to honeybees, and how their pollination of flowers in the spring and summer produced the food we are harvesting in fall. We will be able to observe honeybees making honey using a glass Observation Hive. We will also take a walk to the Children's Education Farm to check out the compost that the students helped sort in spring and learn where the newly made soil will go to help grow next year's crops in our gardens. 

Timeframe: 2.5 Hours per visit (May-June & September-October)

Educational Standards:

SCI.LS1.C.K Animals obtain food they need from plants or other animals. Plants need water and light.

SCI.LS1.D.1 Animals sense and communicate information and respond to inputs with behaviors that help them grow and survive.

SCI.LS2.A.2 Plants depend on water and light to grow. Plants depend on animals for pollination or to move their seeds around.

SCI.LS3.B.1 Individuals of the same kind of plant or animal are recognizable as similar, but can also very in many ways.

ELS.C1.C.e Explore outdoors, observing changes over time; describe and ask questions about patterns in natural and built environments.