Gardening with Class 2021

Envision Green Schoolyards

In her presentation, Native Seed Bombs, Leslie will talk about native seeds as useful resources. She will demonstrate making seed bombs and ways to package them as gifts.

Leslie is a UCCE Master Gardener with over 1000 hours of volunteering in school gardens, public outreach, plant propagation and public speaking. Leslie has been President of Coronado Floral Association, has chaired the Coronado Flower Show for many years and is a Southern California coastal garden consultant.

The Magical Parts of a Plant is designed to keep younger children visually engaged and stimulated. In a pre-recorded video with Ms. Smarty-Plants, students will explore the parts of plants, learn their most important needs, take an interactive tour of The Water Conservation Garden, and participate in a sing-along song in American Sign Language. Pam will then be available to discuss her presentation and answer questions from the audience.

A lifelong educator, and Director of Operations and Programs of The Water Conservation Garden is affectionately known as “Ms. Smarty Plants” to the thousands of students and adults she reaches each year with interactive education in nature, and classroom conservation programs.

In Plant Parts and Performance Judey and Brian provide a fresh approach to teaching the parts of a plant to Grades 1 and 2. They discuss roots, stems, and leaves and the part each performs. They examine the relationship between roots and soil and demonstrate teacher tips for activities in the garden and in the classroom.

Judey Petix is a Clairemont Regional Trainer with the Sage Garden Project and a Garden Educator at Lafayette Elementary School. She has twenty years of experience teaching science.

Brian Pierini is a Clairemont Regional Trainer and Sage Garden educator at Lafayette Elementary School.

Interested, Invested, and Engaged: Garden Exploration Stations To Meet NGSS, SEL and Art Literacy Expectations, incorporates four distinct “exploration stations” educators can create to help 1^st and 2^nd grade students use vermicompost, seeds, flower art, and fresh garden harvests to engage their sense of taste, develop creativity, and make discoveries.

Math in the Garden demonstrates ways for students to discover higher level math using a hands-on approach. Nancy will demonstrate projects to teach perimeter, area, volume, geometry, and number sense using multiplication, division, percentage, and fractions.

Which Weeds in Our Garden Are Related to Broccoli? Let’s Find Out!, is geared for Pre-K to Grade 5. The lessons will take students on an enjoyable and fascinating adventure to learn the history of common vegetables and weeds in the Brassica family.

Be A Citizen Scientist! will demonstrate how engaging yourself and others in citizen science can be fun and rewarding. Citizen science is helping democratize and popularize the field of natural history, and revolutionary technology enables public participation in science like never before. It is appropriate for all grade levels.

Garden Therapy in Linda Vista - geared for Grades 6-12 - will showcase the summer program they designed and implemented at the Montgomery Middle School Community Garden. They will share a variety of traditional garden techniques and outdoor activities for middle and high school students to help improve their overall health and well-being, and reduce stress as they connect with nature.

JMG Learn, Grow, Eat, Go is an overview of the Junior Master Garden curriculum for 3^rd to 5^th graders and how one educator implemented this as an after school program.

Nicole will discuss ways to involve both the school and surrounding community in your school garden. Through real life examples and additional engagement ideas for a multitude of both school and community gardens, Nicole will illustrate one school's journey toward Growing Community in the School Garden. 

Creating a School Garden will guide you from start to finish – from choosing the best site to planting and maintaining your garden. You will also learn about the in-between steps – building beds and installing irrigation.

Sustaining a School Garden will give you insight into building and maintaining healthy soil, managing pests, and year-round garden maintenance. They will also share tips for making improvements beyond the basic garden, including transforming the garden into an outdoor classroom, upgrading equipment, and finding funding sources through donations, grants, etc

Prescription: School Gardens will spotlight learning through outdoor gardening and how it affects children’s health by promoting normal eye development, reducing ADD symptoms, and improving mood, nighttime sleep, and general health. It will showcase ways to engage students in the school garden to enhance learning and good health.

Creating a “Yes” Space for Discovery and Inquiry, will cover how to structure and deliver successful lessons in Green Schoolyards. It will begin with key ideas for lesson planning, progress to surveying your physical environment, and conclude with classroom management techniques that invite a sense of community, value for all voices, and embrace the importance of unplanned “learning moments.”

“Farmer Roy’s” presentation, Starting a Fall Garden, is geared to all grade levels. You will learn what grows best in our “cool season,” and get tips on how to prepare, plant, and maintain a variety of vegetables for the fall and winter season.

Gardening for Wildlife: Native Plants for Native Fauna showcases the value of including native plants in the garden to encourage pollinators and support a balanced healthy ecosystem.

In her presentation, Good Bugs, Bad Bugs in Your Garden, Carol hopes to reduce “bug phobia.” She will review some of the bugs found in our home gardens and give helpful information about how to deal with them. Her presentation is appropriate for all grade levels.

Compost Basics, describes the basics of hot and cold composting to close the loop, and turn plant trimmings and food scraps into a rich soil amendment. It will show you how to engage students as they observe and participate in the magical transformation. The presentation is appropriate for all grade levels.

Vermiculture, Playing with Worms, is geared to Grades 3 – 12. It will be exciting, entertaining, and educational as you learn about the anatomy, needs and benefits of having worms in the garden.

To Jodi, hand tools are as big a part of gardening as seeds and plants. Her presentation, The Essential Guide to Garden Hand Tools, will help you select and use the right tool to make the work easier and safer for both the plant and the gardener. She will describe a variety of tools, their uses, what works best for a particular task, safe practices, and maintenance. She will also address using adaptive garden tools.

Learn how Maria teaches gardening to older students in San Diego. In the course, Social Justice in Food, students explore public health and food justice issues through hands-on activities such as organic gardening, composting and creating green spaces on campus.

His 45-minute presentation, Introduction to Biomimicry, is geared for Grades 4-12. It will teach you how to apply Biomimicry – reconnecting people with nature – to classroom learning. It is an opportunity to learn about functional biology, design, and engineering. For more information: https://www.biomimicrysandiego.org

iNaturalist – A Science Engagement Tool is geared for Grades 6-12. He will demonstrate how to use iNaturalist to engage teens and tweens in ecological and environmental education.

Her presentation Creating a Butterfly Garden will provide basic information for creating a butterfly garden. She will “show and tell” both native and non-native plants in her own garden and give an overview of the steps needed to create a butterfly garden.