A school garden is more than just beautiful landscaping

In a school garden student exploration and discovery are the primary goals. Although our school gardens are beautiful, there are times when we allow a small part of the garden to get “messy” in order to give Mother Nature the room to create an exciting lesson for your students! We are the experts at knowing what to plant, when to harvest, and when to just leave the garden alone in anticipation of an important teachable moment.

Fun lesson ideas such as The Great Tomato Horn Worm Hunt. Allow a few of your tomato plants to continue growing right through the heat of the summer, ready for students to return in the fall. These overgrown tomato plants will hopefully be covered with big, fat, tomato horn worms that will destroy the plant but in turn make a fantastic lesson in August and September. There’s nothing quite like watching a student discover a 2″ tomato horn worm well camouflaged on a tomato leaf! Lesson topics – life cycle/ metamorphosis, habitat, predator/prey, math skills measuring the caterpillar, and more.

A well designed school garden is not the same thing as beautiful landscaping. A true learning garden is all about students experiencing nature, learning where their food comes from, teachable moments, and offering amazing opportunities for students to investigate and explore!