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Teresa Adams
This website offers an array of activities on eco systems, climate, animal and plant species: the fundamentals of basic biology for children.

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NASA satellites keep an eye on Earth's water and air-which are essential for life on Earth. Some satellites can monitor plant health, too.

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Hannah McGee

This website is awesome because it provides activities to do lessons on school gardens.

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Wiki Home BNAN Website SLUG Handbook Planting Resources Newsletters INDOOR GROWING INDOOR COMPOSTING OUTDOOR GROWING OUTDOOR COMPOSTING Participating Schools: Chittick Elementary Conley ElementaryCurtis Guild School Edward Everett Elementary Harvard-Kent School Haynes EEC Holmes Elementary Mason Elementary Mission Hill School Otis Elementary Patrick Lyndon School Perkins School Trotter School Former SLUG Schools: COMPASS Boston MATCH School O'Donnell Elementary The Tobin School Umana Middle School

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Makayla Boisseau
This website provides both students and teachers a starting point with multiple different resources to begin their gardens. Beginning in the classroom and eventually leading to doing work outside in the garden. It provides multiple ideas on what to include in the curriculum.

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1. Start early. Make plans for your spring garden in January. Think about where and what you're going to plant, as well as resources in your community. Who might donate a few seed packets? Who could help with preparing the seed bed if your students aren't old enough? You may want to contact your local high school or community college. Students in Agriculture programs could potentially offer labor, plants and/or planting advice. Local Garden Club members or Master Gardeners can often offer their time to give you an extra hand.

2. Start small. The first year that you garden with your students, don't feel pressure to have a big harvest. Start with a small space, turning over the soil with a shovel. To reduce weeds remove grass and roots as you turn the soil or cover it will plastic for a month before hand. Most soils that sustain grass are fine for growing vegetables. You may want to incorporate some compost or other amendments into the soil if available. You don't have to plant lots of different vegetables. Classroom gardens should be more about the experience and magic of growing rather than what is produced. A small successful project is something you can build on each year.

3. Send home a wish list with your students. Many parents have old tools lying around that they don't use or would be happy to donate seeds, gloves, compost, mulch, etc.

4. Tell teachers and administration about what you are doing. Showing your school's administration and other teachers how you are tying the garden into curriculum will build support and encouragement. You might even inspire others to get involved!

5. Choose a few things to plant: The following are a few examples of "cool season vegetables", which can be directly seeded outside in March or April (or in August/September for a fall garden):

Lettuce

Chard

Radishes

Collard greens

Mustard greens

Carrots

Kale

Spinach

Peas

Spring Mix

Beets

Potatoes

All of these veggies should be ready to harvest (except potatoes, which are dug in the late summer/fall) before school lets out!

The following fruits and vegetables are examples of "warm season" plants, and can be planted in May, after the danger of frost has passed. Make sure to check the seed packages, because many warm season plants (such as tomatoes and peppers) need to be started indoors or purchased as transplants. Most of these items will not be ready to harvest until the summer or fall:

6. Get a good start. Some types of plants need to be started indoors weeks/months before they can be planted outside. Most seed packages will give you a recommendation as to when seeds should be planted and if they need to be started indoors. If you have good light or grow lamps you and your students can plant "starts" beginning in February. If you don't start seeds yourself, you can buy starts at area tailgate markets or greenhouses beginning in April. We have a lesson plan with step-by-step instructions for planting starts.

7. Plan for upkeep. Depending on the size of your garden, mulching and weeding can be more than young kids can take care of. If you find that you have more upkeep than you and your students can handle, ask a parent or community volunteer to come in occasionally to help. If you plant summer or fall crops, you may want to enlist a family or volunteer to help maintain your plot over the summer. If not, a weedy garden can be a great source of adventure when students return to school. When it doesn't rain, make sure to water thoroughly at least once per week so that soil always stays moist.

8. Create a routine. Established routines are great for students and gardens alike. Students look forward to "garden time" and benefit from being involved in maintenance, as well as harvesting. Having "garden time" at least once a week to plant, water, weed, or just observe will ensure your students are engaged in the growing process, and that your garden is getting the attention it needs.

9. Utilize lesson plans. School gardens are more sustainable when they are used as a teaching tool, rather than an extracurricular activity. This website includes a wide variety of lesson plans that will help you use hands-on garden experiences to fulfill standard course of study objectives.

10. Keep it fun! Students love to work in the garden, and it can be a powerful and fun way to teach concepts from early literacy to math. One look at a child engaged in the wonder of growing or eating vegetables they once scoffed at, and all of the work of planning your garden will pay off!

Downloads

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1. Start early. Make plans for your spring garden in January. Think about where and what you're going to plant, as well as resources in your community. Who might donate a few seed packets? Who could help with preparing the [...]

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Hannah McGee

This gives students an idea about what the will be learning about for that lesson. I thought this was interesting as it was about worksheets for students

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Katie Goostree

This website will provide the students with an example of a place that they can donate their food. This will help them in their decision of where the food should go once it is grown.

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Manna Café Ministries serves people in need in Clarksville/Montgomery County through a soup kitchen on wheels, food box distribution, and other vital resources. Propelled chiefly by volunteers, Manna Café strives to restore hope, dignity, self-reliance, community, and the love of God through Jesus Christ.

We believe that it is God's will that "the poor will eat and be [abundantly] satisfied" (Ps. 22:26).

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Manna Café Ministries - Serving people in need in Clarksville, TN.

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Manna Café Ministries serves people in need in Clarksville/Montgomery County through a soup kitchen on wheels, food box distribution, and other vital resources. Propelled chiefly by volunteers, Manna Café strives to restore hope, dignity, self-reliance, community, and the love of God through Jesus Christ.

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Katherine Cinelli
This website allows children to answer questions on a wide variety of subjects and each correct answer donates 10 grains of rice to a country in need. This will teach the children that they can have an impact on people all over the globe with their food donations.

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Meet Freerice

Freerice is an educational trivia game that helps you get smarter while making a difference for people around the world. Every question you answer correctly raises 10 grains of rice for the World Food Programme (WFP) to support its work saving and changing lives around the world.

Across the globe, up to 783 million people do not have enough food to eat. From reducing our food waste to ensuring access to nutritious food for everyone, we have a lot of work to do. At WFP, we believe that food is a human right and that everyone deserves to live in a #ZeroHunger world. Let's work together to fill everyone's plate.

Our Impact

Playing Freerice sends an important message: community matters, and only by coming together can we help solve global problems like food insecurity and poverty. By using your knowledge to do good, you're advocating for positive change and supporting our mission to achieve a world of Zero Hunger. Whether you are playing Freerice at school or learning about the UN Sustainable Development Goals, you are paving the path for brighter futures ahead through nutritious.

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Across the globe, up to 783 million people do not have enough food to eat. From reducing our food waste to ensuring access to nutritious food for everyone, we have a lot of work to do. At WFP, we believe that food is a human right and that everyone deserves to live in a #ZeroHunger world.

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Teresa Adams
This website simplifies, yet maintains, the essentials of the well known resource "The Farmers Almanac"  by displaying things like astrological timing and weather.

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Sunrise: 6:01 A.M., Sunset: 7:27 P.M. For Boston, MA [ CHANGE]

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Katherine Cinelli
An interactive game and video website that educates children on plant life and its many uses.

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The Plants unit has educational movie that teach about plant adaptations, parts of a plant, and plant life cycles.

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Danielle Liermann
This is a youtube video that gets kids excited about gardening but also teaches them how to do it around their neighborhood and even at school.

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GUARDIANS OF THE GARDEN! Surprise Box from KID PRESIDENT! Guide to Being Awesome!!!

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Check out our friend Kid President on the SoulPancake Channel: http://www.youtube.com/SoulPancake Time to team up and collab with our friend Kid President (Robby Novak) and help make the world more AWESOME! He's given us executive order #70 from his new book Kid President's Guide to Being Awesome.

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Lesson Plan: Plant and Soil Relationship

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Lesson Plan: Plant and Soil Relationship

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Katie Goostree

This lesson plan breaks down the basics of gardening and how soil effects the plant growth. This lesson plan is for grades 3-5 and is age appropriate and task oriented.

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Click to Download this Lesson Plan
Overview: Students investigate the relationship between plants and soil.

Grade Level/Range: Grades 3-5
Objective:
Students will learn:

Soil helps anchor plants and provides them essential elements of water and nutrients.

Plants prevent soil erosion and provide organic matter.

Time: 1 hour for discussion and to set up demonstration; 2 weeks to observe
Materials:

Student observation journals

Chalkboard or dry-erase board

Background Information:
Although many factors contribute to a thriving garden, any seasoned gardener will stress the importance of good soil. In addition to anchoring roots, soil provides life-sustaining water and nutrients. Plants in poor soils will struggle to grow, even if optimal water and light are available. In contrast, plants in good soils will grow to their fullest potential and experience fewer problems with insects and disease.

Soil is composed of minerals and organic matter. Sand, silt, and clay are the mineral particles derived from rock broken down over thousands of years by climatic and environmental conditions (rain, glaciers, wind, rivers, animals, etc). The largest, coarsest mineral particles are sand. These particles are 2.00-0.05 mm in diameter and feel gritty in your fingers. Silt particles are 0.05-0.002 mm and feel similar to flour. Clay particles are extremely fine -- smaller than 0.002 mm -- feel sticky in your fingers when wet, and clump to the point that you can't see an individual particle without a microscope. Organic matter is the decayed remains of once-living plants and animals. Good plant growth and development depends on the mineral and nutrient content of soil, as well as its structure.

Soil is teeming with life, including microorganisms like bacteria and fungi (billions in a single teaspoon!) and larger animals such as worms and sowbugs. Many of these underground inhabitants feed on remains of plants and animals, breaking down their tissues. In the process, they create pore space and release nutrients that plants need and the cycle begins again.

Pore space -- the arrangement of soil particles in relationship to each other -- is an important component of soil structure. In an optimal situation about 50 percent of the volume of the soil would be pore space, with half of that filled with water and half filled with air. The other 50 percent would be sand, silt, clay, and organic matter. Roots need air as much as they need water; plants can actually suffocate or drown if they are completely submerged in water for extended periods of time.

The proportion of these different-sized particles affects the amount of air, water, and nutrients available to plants, and how the soil 'behaves.' The smaller the soil particles, the more they stick together when wet. Thus clay soils can be sticky and difficult to work. Having fewer air spaces, they drain poorly and roots may suffer from a lack of oxygen, but clay soils can be rich in minerals. In contrast, sandy soils can drain water too quickly and be low in nutrients, but they are easier to work. Adding organic material can offset many of the problems associated with either extreme.

While there's no such thing as a perfect soil, particular plants grow best in particular soils. In general, common garden plants prefer loam -- soils with a balance of different-sized mineral particles (approximately 40 percent sand, 40 percent silt, and 20 percent clay) and ample organic matter and pore space, but some common plants grow better in sandy conditions, while others are well adapted to clay soils.

Not only is soil important to plants, plants are also important to soil formation. Without plants, the earth would be barren, its surface unprotected from the effects of sun, wind, and rain, and its soil composition too poor to sustain life. Plant roots help to prevent erosion, and when plants die, they become the raw material for worms, insects, and microbes to build the nutrient-rich humus that supports robust food webs and promotes good soil strucutre. (Recently, researchers have discovered that plants secrete excess carbohydrates through their roots to encourage growth of microbes!)

Advanced Preparation: This lesson requires a soil sample. If your schoolyard does not have a place where you can dig or if you are concerned about possible lead contamination in your school's soil, bring in a sample from an alternate location.
Laying the Groundwork:

1. As a class, discuss whether and how soil is important for plants. Ask, What do you think soil does for plants? (Provides a place to anchor roots, nutrients, water, air.) Ask, Have you ever seen plants growing without soil ? Explain that some plants, including certain aquatic and parasitic plants, have particular adaptations that allow them to meet their basic needs without soil. Ask, Do plants need soil?

2. Delve deeper into the plant-soil relationship. Ask, Other than mineral particles, what is an important part of soil? Share the background information about microorganisms -- fungi, bacteria, and other decomposers -- and discuss the role they play.

1. Find out what your students know or assume about the plant-soil relationship. Ask, Plants need soil, but does soil need plants? Record all answers and supporting reasoning; then visit the schoolyard or a nearby park to make observations. Have teams investigate the soil in different areas (e.g., garden beds, lawns, weedy patches, woods, a compacted area along the edge of a driveway or sidewalk) and record their observations in their journals. Make a second chart, summarizing these findings and take a vote. Ask, Who thinks soil needs plants?

2. Collect some soil from your schoolyard. Put it in a large zippered plastic bag along with some organic materials (vegetable scraps, plant clippings, old leaves). For comparison, add these same organic materials to a second bag, but do not add soil. Moisten the contents of the "compost" bags, seal them, punch a few air holes in them, and leave them in a warm part of the classroom for a week or two, while the class observes what happens. Then ask, Are the contents changing? How? What do you think might be causing this change? Where have you seen examples of once-living things changing and decomposing outdoors? (Rotting logs, moldy garbage, compost piles.) Did some materials seem to decompose more quickly than others?

Making Connections:
Discuss the explorations. Ask:

In what ways do you think plants depend on soil? Based on your observations, can you imagine how soil might depend on plants or animals? In what ways do animals -- including humans! -- depend on soil?

Why do you think materials might break down quickly in soil? What do you think might happen to once-living things that decompose in soil? How might these once-living things help to support life?

Branching Out:
Science - Conduct a simple simulation to introduce students to the concept of erosion. Fill two trays with soil. Leave one tray unplanted and then plant a fast growing seeds such as ryegrass in the second. Wait two weeks as the grass grows. Then set the two pans up side by side, propping one end up about two inches at one end to create a slope. Set up a collecting basin below the pan for runoff. Holding a watering can a foot above the trays, sprinkle "rain" for a minute or two. If necessary, help students make connections between the simulation and what can happen outdoors; then discuss the techniques farmers and gardeners use to reduce or prevent erosion. (Mulching, terracing, cover crops, adding organic matter to improve a soil's water absorption.)

History - Research the Dust Bowl of the 1930's and investigate both its causes and the lessons learned by farmers and ranchers. Ask a farmer to come speak to the class about how he or she prepares soil for crops today.

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Lesson Plans- The Plant-Soil Relationship - Kidsgardening

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Click to Download this Lesson Plan Overview: Students investigate the relationship between plants and soil. Grade Level/Range: Grades 3-5 Objective: Students will learn: Soil helps anchor plants and provides them essential elements of water and nutrients. Plants prevent soil erosion and provide organic matter.

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https://www.kidsgardening.org/eat-learn-live-and-grow-webinar/

HarperJ

This website has instructional videos, lesson plans, ideas for books to read to your class about starting a garden, how include nutritional food into your diet, and even includes information about obtaining grants for your school to start a garden. There is also a section that includes a crafts & activities section where students can make their own composting bins and can actively practice recycling.

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Katherine Cinelli
A website all about gardening and how children benefit from the experience, and the best plants for children to plant.

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Children curious, like to learn by doing, and love to play in the dirt. Working in a garden, a child can experience the satisfaction that comes from caring for something over time, while observing the cycle of life firsthand.

Gardening gives children a chance to learn an important life skill, one that is overlooked in standard school curriculums. Gardening is also a great way to teach environmental awareness by exploring the workings of nature.

What to Plant: Top 10 Crops for Children

Our children were involved with gardening from an early age, and it was gratifying to watch their interest and self-esteem grow as their gardening efforts yielded good results. Although there are many crops suitable for the young gardener, here are our "Top 10", which are relatively easy to grow, have short growing seasons, and are fun to harvest.

Other Crops Our Children Have Tried, With Mixed Results:

Corn: A heavy feeder, corn needs lots of compost or fertilizer, and requires a lot of growing space in relation to the size of the harvest. If the plants aren't "knee high by the 4th of July", the ears will be small. In our garden, either the crows got the seedlings, or the plants just never got big enough to yield a good harvest.

Green onions: Easy to grow, but not all that exciting.

Zucchini: Easy, fast, and impressive size, but it takes a good recipe to get children excited about zucchini.

Strawberries: Great, but can be a struggle with the predators. We chose the 'ever-bearing' strawberry varieties which have smaller fruit but which bear all summer. Netting the plants from the birds and raccoons, however, was a constant chore which the young children often forgot. Birds became caught in the strawberry netting, which was never fun.

Watermelon: Similar to pumpkins to grow, watermelon have to be well grown to be large and tasty. In our experience, the fruit was smaller than expected and not very sweet. We prefer to give the space to pumpkins.

Tips for Gardening With Children

Give Them Their Own Garden Beds

Whether you use raised beds, containers or ground plots, be sure to give each child his or her own separate plot. Keep it small, very small for young kids. Put their plots right in the middle of the action, with the best soil and light. Set them up for success.

Reuse the Sandbox

If your children have grown past their sandbox years, consider converting the old sandbox to a garden bed. This gives the child continued 'ownership' of a familiar space and encourages a sense of responsibility to the gardening project. Of course, a productive garden bed needs to be in good sunlight and soil should be free of tree roots. It may be necessary to relocate the sandbox if growing conditions are less than ideal.

Resources for Young Gardeners

The Great Plant Escape: This is a great primer on gardening written for children; follow the clues and learn the plant growing basics.

My First Garden: A wonderful site from the University of Illinois. All you need to know about getting started with your first garden in a fun and kid-friendly way.

The Adventure of Herman the Worm: Activities, games, and info.

KinderGARDEN: Has many links and resources for teaching children about gardening. Check out the fun page and the book list.

The Kids Garden: Creative children's gardening ideas from the UK

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Children curious, like to learn by doing, and love to play in the dirt. Working in a garden, a child can experience the satisfaction that comes from caring for something over time, while observing the cycle of life firsthand.

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Hannah McGee

This website gives ideas about what resources a teacher can use when teaching a lesson about school gardens!

http://www.lifelab.org/for-educators/schoolgardens/

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Teresa Adams
An interactive agricultural simulation game that allows the students to get a feel for ordering inventory, planting according to seasons,  and using farm technology.

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Cornucopia | A Free Environmental Simulation Game

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Cornucopia is a free STEM education game designed for use in classrooms and out-of-school time programs. Manage a plot of land, plant crops, and earn technology upgrades to make your farm successful! Brought to you by the California Academy of Sciences.

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Hannah McGee

Pinterest gives teachers many ideas for school gardens/farms, which gives teacher ideas for fun activities for gardens!

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Discover recipes, home ideas, style inspiration and other ideas to try.

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Alexis Lewis

This website is an well educated website for students to learn about gardens and also how to explore ways to utilize the garden and nutrition to enhance with different subjects. This website is also helpful to incorporate gardening into any lessons to benefit the children with what they already know and engaging them with their natural curiosity.