Orchard Garden CFE 2017 Brainstorming Day 1

Orchard Garden CFE 2017 Brainstorming Day 1

Benefits of learning in the garden:

-get fresh air

-have more fun

-trick students into learning

-learning is more tactile

-learning is more hands-on

-students have the opportunity to move around

-learning is place-based

-students can have positive experiences and develop positive relationships with the outdoors

-learning becomes contextual
-there are opportunities to teach many different topics, such as figurative language (language arts), biology (science), planning (business)

-learning can be inquiry-based

-students are more motivated to learn

How to be when teaching in the garden:

-remain curious

-admit we don’t know everything

-establish a loose framework that allows students to lead parts of the learning, with guidance at the beginning and end of the lesson time

-state our expectations clearly

-explain to students why we are going outside to learn

-consider ways to incorporate garden-based learning into assessment

-think about possible barriers to learning in the garden, such as students’ discomfort or administration’s disapproval, and plan ways to overcome these barriers

-ease students (and administration) into garden-based learning by starting with small steps and working up to larger goals

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