By Shawnee Adelson, Denver Urban Gardens Youth Education Facilitator
Are you interested in how to use the garden as an educational tool? Have you looked at DUG’s School Garden and Nutrition Curriculum?
This curriculum is current, relevant and extremely well-done. Every elementary school garden team leader should review DUG’s site. – Edible Schoolyard
The seasonal approach of our curriculum bridges gardening, nutrition and science using standards-aligned lessons for the elementary school classroom and garden. Most lessons are one hour and include a healthy, kid-tested recipe that is appropriate for the classroom, topic and season. All of our lessons are available for free to download from our website along with many other supporting documents that cover everything from Integrated Pest Management to Classroom Management Tips. With over 30 lessons to choose from, it may be hard to know where to start. Our list of Key Lessons highlights some of our favorite and most relevant lessons.
Making spring rolls at the August Helping Kids Get Healthy WorkshopEach lesson includes the applicable Colorado Academic Standards in science and comprehensive health with suggested extensions and modifications. Many of the extensions and modifications include how other disciplines may be integrated into the lesson. Literacy standards are a primary focus for many struggling schools and many of our lessons include a writing component. DUG’s education team will be spending some time over the slow winter months to align our lessons to the applicable literacy standards. We also provide suggestions for interdisciplinary extensions, including ideas for math, art and social studies.
The beauty of the curriculum is how adaptable it is to different age groups, populations and settings. Educators who participated in our Helping Kids Get Healthy Educator Workshops in 2012 reported adapting the lessons for four year olds, kindergarteners, middle and high school students and adults. Some shortened the lessons or modified the supplies. And some even took sections of various lessons to create their own lessons.
Our curriculum has made its way around the state and the country as a basis for other programs’ curriculum. The Garden Coordinator for Alamosa Community Gardens participated in one of our Educator Workshops and from there created a fourth grade curriculum to use in their school gardens. The state of Kansas used six of DUG’s core lessons to create their own family gardening curriculum for their SNAP-Ed program. We are thrilled that others find value in a resource we have spent many years developing and refining.
Judy Elliott (a.k.a. Jungle Judy) developed many of these lessons at Fairview Elementary School, where she has been teaching nutrition and gardening to Don Diehl’s fifth grade class for over ten years. Sara Gunderson, who teaches the DUG curriculum in four fifth grade classrooms at Swansea Elementary. This year we are piloting a new approach to expand our reach to schools who have shown interest in having an outside educator come into their classroom to teach about nutrition and gardening. Four Connecting Generations volunteer mentors will be teaching twelve DUG lessons in classrooms at Johnson Elementary and Maxwell Elementary. The University of Colorado Denver’s Integrated Nutrition Education Program (INEP) provides funding for our in classroom efforts.
To provide more support for educators who wish to use the curriculum, DUG offers the Helping Kids Get Healthy Educator Workshops. Held six times a year, these workshops are based on the curriculum and are designed for teachers and volunteers who work in youth education programs that focus on nutrition and gardening. Each workshop focuses on at least one seasonally appropriate lesson, a compatible and kid-friendly snack and hints and tips from seasoned our educators. Our next workshop is November 7th and will cover worm composting in the classroom and Fat Sandwiches. Click here for more information and how to register for the upcoming workshop.
