Friday, March 13, 2009

Garden Science


When the sky is gray and the air is cold, Garden Science is what keeps our garden spirit going during those seemingly long winter months. Garden Science is an eight-week long program that the WYG conducts off-site at DC public and charter elementary schools. We have five third and fourth grade classrooms that we visit once a week, using hands-on activities to teach lessons relevant to plant, environmental, earth, and life sciences. We also incorporate language arts, math, history, and art.

After our eight weeks in the classroom, each class comes out to the WYG for two full days in May. This is an exciting time for many of the students, some of whom have never gotten to experience such a large garden (almost an acre) or been out to the National Arboretum (where we are located). We spend our two days in the garden tending communal organic vegetable and herb plots while learning about soils, insect and plant life cycles, composting and nutrition. As much as we enjoy being in the classroom, this is really the highlight of the program. We love to have the garden full of kids and especially love to see our local kids out there, as our participating schools are all located in Ward 5, the same ward as the National Arboretum.

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