Garden Based Education

Benefits of Garden-Based Learning
“Gardening enhances our quality of life in numerous ways: providing fresh food, exercise and health benefits, opportunities for multi-generational and life-long learning, creating pleasing landscapes and improved environment, and bringing people together.

Garden-based learning programs result in increased nutrition and environmental awareness, higher learning achievements, and increased life skills for our students. They are also an effective and engaging way to integrate curriculum and meet learning standards, giving young people the chance to develop a wide range of academic and social skills.

Garden experiences foster ecological literacy and stewardship skills, enhancing an awareness of the link between plants in the landscape and our clothing, food, shelter, and well-being. They also provide children and youth with the time and space to explore the natural world–something that can occur rarely in today’s era of indoor living.” (excerpted from Cornell University, the garden based education blog.)

Last week we had 54 kindergarten students from Providence Christian Academy in our gardens learning about chickens and eggs, veggies and herbs, compost, and observing our gardens full of Monarch butterflies, ladybugs, and bees.

Meet Opal, named for Judy’s Aunt Opal. 

 Opal is a Silkie with black skin and bones and 5 toes instead of the normal 4. She is a wonderful brooder and mother.

Eat your veggies! We let the children take home the radishes they picked and they fed the radish tops to the chickens. 

Enthusiastic future vermi-composters!

We are still booking fall field trips.  The Gardens and our Dallas County Master Gardeners are always ready to teach in the garden!