Post by BrianSullivan on Jun 25, 2010 6:11:53 GMT -5
The following article is not about the borough community garden, but a project in Roosevelt. I am posting this here simply to "grow" some ideas.
When the NPC first started with the concept of the Community Garden, I had forwarded ideas to NPC members to add an educational element to the garden. This article provides a different education idea. Can our NPC do this? If not then, maybe a teacher or BOE member might see this and see a possibility in the schools?
Either way, it is a nice article and looks like a terrific project.
examiner.gmnews.com/news/2010-06-24/Front_Page/Learning_from_seedlings_unfurling.html
Learning from seedlings’ unfurling
Gardening helps teach students responsibility and respect, as well as the life cycle
BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP Staff Writer
Aliving classroom at Roosevelt Public School helps students learn to appreciate, embrace and protect their environment.
Brimming with butterflies, buzzing with bees, blooming with annuals and perennials, and about to burst with vegetables, the school garden is a flourishing feat of teacher Ilene Levine’s students.
“In school, anything that lives is the most exciting thing — plants, the garden, animals,” Levine said. “That’s what they learn from, and that’s what they never forget.”
The seed of an idea for a school garden was planted in Levine’s mind years ago when she found parsley crawling with caterpillars at a local garden center. She brought the caterpillars into the classroom, where students watched their transformation into butterflies. She continued the lesson in later years, buying monarch butterfly caterpillar eggs. Then the seed in her mind sprouted into writing a grant proposal for a garden. Now in its third year of full bloom, the garden is a place where students raise flowers and plants to attract butterflies and collect caterpillar eggs while learning about science, nature and the environment.
The National Gardening Association (NGA), based in Burlington, Vt., chose Levine’s gardening project from more than 700 programs proposed nationwide to receive a 2008 Youth Garden Grant in the amount of $500. The garden project has also received additional funding and donations of goods, time and effort from community members.
The garden measures 40 feet in diameter with four 8-foot sections. Students have planted two beds with annuals and two with perennials. Levine’s third-grade class raises annuals from seed each spring. Thirdgraders take responsibility for watering their plants and moving them in and out of school each day for sunlight. Before planting, they research their plants and flowers and the insects they attract.
Once the garden has been planted, children tend to the well-being of their plants and study the insects that pass through or take up residence. On a tour of the garden, third-grader Beth Grossman explained to kindergartners that yarrow is a yellow plant that butterflies like to sip nectar from, as she pointed out all of the cabbage white butterflies flitting around. She said these butterflies, as well as bees, are also attracted to catmint.
Caitlin also said, “We’re trying to figure out what’s eating our rose mallow. We think, but we don’t know for sure, that it’s the American painted lady caterpillar.”
Third-grader Gabe Hoffman said he planted zinnia, which attracts little glassywing and silvery checkerspot butterflies, as well as bees, hummingbirds and hoverflies.
Levine said her students love to find milkweed seeds scattered about the garden. They plant them to watch the pink flowers bloom and the monarch butterfly larvae eat them, according to Levine.
“We raise monarch butterflies in the fall,” Levine said. “They lay eggs in late summer. We can pick them to raise them.”
Levine said that although the third and fourth grades are largely responsible for gardening each year, the garden is a multiage activity that gives children in every grade level the experience of working cooperatively together.
When the NPC first started with the concept of the Community Garden, I had forwarded ideas to NPC members to add an educational element to the garden. This article provides a different education idea. Can our NPC do this? If not then, maybe a teacher or BOE member might see this and see a possibility in the schools?
Either way, it is a nice article and looks like a terrific project.
examiner.gmnews.com/news/2010-06-24/Front_Page/Learning_from_seedlings_unfurling.html
Learning from seedlings’ unfurling
Gardening helps teach students responsibility and respect, as well as the life cycle
BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP Staff Writer
Aliving classroom at Roosevelt Public School helps students learn to appreciate, embrace and protect their environment.
Brimming with butterflies, buzzing with bees, blooming with annuals and perennials, and about to burst with vegetables, the school garden is a flourishing feat of teacher Ilene Levine’s students.
“In school, anything that lives is the most exciting thing — plants, the garden, animals,” Levine said. “That’s what they learn from, and that’s what they never forget.”
The seed of an idea for a school garden was planted in Levine’s mind years ago when she found parsley crawling with caterpillars at a local garden center. She brought the caterpillars into the classroom, where students watched their transformation into butterflies. She continued the lesson in later years, buying monarch butterfly caterpillar eggs. Then the seed in her mind sprouted into writing a grant proposal for a garden. Now in its third year of full bloom, the garden is a place where students raise flowers and plants to attract butterflies and collect caterpillar eggs while learning about science, nature and the environment.
The National Gardening Association (NGA), based in Burlington, Vt., chose Levine’s gardening project from more than 700 programs proposed nationwide to receive a 2008 Youth Garden Grant in the amount of $500. The garden project has also received additional funding and donations of goods, time and effort from community members.
The garden measures 40 feet in diameter with four 8-foot sections. Students have planted two beds with annuals and two with perennials. Levine’s third-grade class raises annuals from seed each spring. Thirdgraders take responsibility for watering their plants and moving them in and out of school each day for sunlight. Before planting, they research their plants and flowers and the insects they attract.
Once the garden has been planted, children tend to the well-being of their plants and study the insects that pass through or take up residence. On a tour of the garden, third-grader Beth Grossman explained to kindergartners that yarrow is a yellow plant that butterflies like to sip nectar from, as she pointed out all of the cabbage white butterflies flitting around. She said these butterflies, as well as bees, are also attracted to catmint.
Caitlin also said, “We’re trying to figure out what’s eating our rose mallow. We think, but we don’t know for sure, that it’s the American painted lady caterpillar.”
Third-grader Gabe Hoffman said he planted zinnia, which attracts little glassywing and silvery checkerspot butterflies, as well as bees, hummingbirds and hoverflies.
Levine said her students love to find milkweed seeds scattered about the garden. They plant them to watch the pink flowers bloom and the monarch butterfly larvae eat them, according to Levine.
“We raise monarch butterflies in the fall,” Levine said. “They lay eggs in late summer. We can pick them to raise them.”
Levine said that although the third and fourth grades are largely responsible for gardening each year, the garden is a multiage activity that gives children in every grade level the experience of working cooperatively together.