Our Garden Science program brings garden- and nutrition-themed education experiences to about 130 students in three participating D.C. elementary schools. For eight weeks from mid-January to mid-March, these classes of inquisitive third and fourth graders are immersed in our highly interactive cooperative learning curriculum that uses hands-on activities to teach lessons relevant to plant, environmental, earth, and life sciences. In addition, the lessons are designed to meet a wide variety of other D.C. content standards, including language arts and math.

This year’s program has incorporated a focus on bring gardening to the schools both in the classroom and the schoolyard. The addition of outside school gardens to our participating elementary schools will provide further learning opportunities to not only the third and fourth graders in our program, but to the entire school and surrounding community. Each school will have a committee of teachers, parents, and community members to support the garden and nurture the available learning opportunities for the students.

In order to form the connections between our classroom curriculum and the school garden project, each class started seeds right in their classroom. We equipped each classroom with a grow rack - an energy efficient fluorescent light attached to a four tiered shelf made out of recycled materials. The grow rack sits right in the classroom, allowing the students to observe the daily changes of their developing plants while learning how to responsibly care for their young vegetables and flowers.

Once the eight-week classroom component is complete, the students come to the youth garden for two full days to experience its bounty first hand through our on-site garden curriculum. The youth gardeners, many of whom have never been in a garden before, plant and tend a variety of organic, communal vegetable and herb plots while learning about soils, insect and plant life cycles, composting, and nutrition in a fun and interactive way. The combination of science and cultivation gives students experiences with healthy living and environmental stewardship to inform their choices as caretakers of themselves and the earth. This program is entirely free to participating schools, including bus transportation for the field trips, thanks to the support of our many donors and volunteers. 

Visit our blog to learn more about Washington Youth Garden programs.