Curriculum Ideas & Links
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Curriculum Ideas & Links |
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Elementary school educators across the country are faced with the challenge of meeting state-wide curriculum requirements
and helping students pass standardized achievement tests. Although school gardening may not be specifically
mentioned in these standards, with a little bit of planning, horticulture activities can be used to
accomplish state goals and objectives in multiple disciplines. It is critical for teachers to show the link
between the standards and their school garden efforts to ensure adminstrative support and success. The Virginia Department of Education has established the Standards of Learning or SOLs to guide educators. The following links provide ideas of ways gardening can be incorporated into classroom activities/curriculum to achieve the related SOLs:
Although activities are separated by subject matter, many garden activities are interdisciplinary. For example, planting a spring vegetable garden may accomplish science (learn about plant life cycles), English (write step by step instructions on planting the garden for a take home brochure), math (measure for plant placement and spacing), history (choose vegetables grown in Colonial times), fine arts (use the garden to learn about color and texture) and health (make a salad after harvesting vegetables and learn about 5-a-day for Better Health) objectives. In addition to the subject specific links, the following sites provide online lesson plan curriculum and activity ideas for all subjects (tips for evaluating websites):
The Teacher Information Network
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For more information contact the Virginia Tech Horticulture Department at: 407 Saunders Hall, 0327 Blacksburg, VA 24061-0327 540-231-2714 or vtmg@vt.edu Created Spring 2001, Last Modified April 8, 2002 |