The American Horticultural Society has just teamed up with Cornell University to update their FREE online guide to starting gardening programs for children. Titled Sowing the Seeds of Success: How to Start and Sustain a Kids’ Gardening Project in your Community,” the 160-page downloadable guide is designed to address “the increased interest in school and community garden projects and the troubling issues of food insecurity and nature deficit disorder.”
It can be used by communities anywhere in North America and around the world. The guide includes sections designed for different audiences, along with relevant activities, program tools, and links to additional resources.
Fiona Doherty of the School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell sees the guide as a resource for empowering youth with the confidence and “skills to become our next generation of environmental stewards.”
Get your guide at www.gardening.cals.cornell.edu. For more resources for starting a school garden, check out our blog post on School Garden Resources for Teachers. If you’re not a teacher, but want to help one out with tons of lesson plans and other practical help for getting kids outside of the classroom to learn, feel free to share!
But asking overburdened teachers, who may not be gardeners themselves, to figure out how to add a gardening project to their busy day that also aligns with ever-changing curriculum standards, can understandably be a huge stumbling block.
Have you already done the work to get a school garden started, but don’t see teachers using it? Or do you need to convince administration that one can be a useful teaching tool before you can break ground? Here’s a list of practical resources you can share with teachers. We’ve included school garden teacher training, lesson plans, planting plans, worksheets and teaching tools, videos, and complete outdoor classroom curricula. We’ve also included just a few resources to find grants (start with the first one to uncover a treasure trove of options).
These are just a few of the lesson plans available from KidsGardening.org
Some of these school garden teaching resources are suitable for outdoor classrooms throughout the US, but we’ve focused on ones developed to align with Georgia curriculum standards. If you are looking for other states, reach out to your Cooperative Extension Service or 4-H program to see if they can help you find ones suitable for your teaching standards and growing conditions, or take a look at this extensive list from the UGA Extension School Garden Resource Website. The Cooperative Extension Service may even be able to connect you with some helpful Master Gardener Extension Volunteers who can help assist with your school gardening projects!
School garden lesson plans
UGA Extension School Garden Curriculum – Lesson plans using gardens to teach a wide range of topics, grades K-8, aligned to the educational standards for the State of Georgia.
Seed to Plate Farm to School Lesson Plans from Georgia Organics. Paired with appropriate Georgia Performance Standards, and covering topics including vocabulary building and historical figures. Includes lessons paired with related children’s books.
Captain Planet’s Project Learning Garden Program Curriculum – Lessons for preschool through middle school, tied to common core curriculum standards across multiple subjects including math, science, health, social studies and language arts. Several lesson videos also available. The Captain Planet Foundation has its roots in Atlanta, starting with an idea created by Ted Turner.
Nature Works Everywhere, presented by The Nature Conservancy – 58 different lesson plans, including a video for each lesson. Aligned to Next-Generation Science Standards and Common Core Standards. Also includes how-to videos and tip sheets for planning and planting gardens, and even a video on addressing kids’ fears about gardening.
Nature Works Everywhere Garden Design Tool – online interactive grid to map out your school garden (and don’t miss the how-to videos mentioned above in the lesson plans section).
NEW: Sowing the Seeds of Success – Free downloadable guide to starting and sustaining a kids gardening program from the American Horticultural Society and Cornell University.
Harvesting the Most from Your School Garden – Great 1-hour webinar from Charlie Nardozzi and KidsGardening.org covering topics including how to get buy-in from administration, what to plant during the cooler school year months, and how to incorporate your harvest into the school cafeteria. Recording available on demand and free! See full list of webinars in the series here: https://www.kidsgardening.org/eat-learn-live-and-grow-webinar/
And finally, if the spirit is willing but the budget is weak, here are just a few starting points for finding funding to make your school garden dreams come true. We recommend starting with EE in Georgia, which has tons of options.
And yes, there are tons more of these kinds of resources out there, but we wanted to give a manageable list that should give your school gardening program a great start, and your teachers some easy resources that won’t take a ton of time or training to use.
