March/April 2000 Issue

FOCUS SECTION INDEX
Millennium Focus: Children's Gardening
Growing the Next Generation 
A Child's Backyard in the New Millennium
A Return to Nature's Play Equipment
Children's Gardening Resources
AHS Sows Seeds of Imagination
Youth Garden Symposium

Millennium Focus: Children's Gardening

One of the most exciting areas in horticulture today is the resurgence of interest in children's gardening. Recognizing the value of gardening in teaching a broad range of subjects, schools and communities across the country are planting gardens as instructional tools and outdoor classrooms. Public gardens are developing innovative interactive displays and programs that are often coordinated with state and national educational learning objectives.

And in our home gardens we are discovering new ways to provide an environment for children to experience nature first hand.

Growing the Next Generation 
by Norman Lownds

"Come and look at our garden!" That's the first thing I heard when I visited Wardcliff Elementary School in East Lansing, Michigan, last fall. The kids couldn't wait to show me the school garden they had planted in the spring. 

The overall design was a large circle divided into segments by a star-shaped arrangement of stepping stones. Each grade had propriety of one segment. The kids themselves had decided on a theme for each that related to their studies. Why the star? The children at this school are the "All Stars." 

These children are part of one of the most exciting trends in gardening: the development of gardens designed to inspire, teach, and entertain kids. What can we expect for children's gardens in the new millennium? What forces will shape and influence future children's gardens? 

And what opportunities do we, as gardeners everywhere, have to ensure the continued success of children's gardens? The answers to these questions lie in the new programs, initiatives, and goals that this trend is generating.

Access to Children's Gardens Children's gardens are certainly not new; in 1918 Brooklyn Botanical Garden opened the first public garden designed for children in the United States. 

Eighty years later only a handful of other public children's gardens were in existence, notably the Children's Garden at Longwood Gardens, The Everett Children's Adventure Garden at The New York Botanical Garden, the Michigan 4-H Children's Garden, and the Children's Demonstration Gardens at the American Horticultural Society's River Farm headquarters. 

But in just the past year children's gardens have opened or are nearing completion at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, The Cleveland Botanical Garden, and in Camden, New Jersey. 

More are in the design or early construction stage at Quail Botanical Garden in California, Rio Grande Botanic Garden in New Mexico, Above and Beyond Children's Museum in Wisconsin, and Squam Lakes Natural Science Center in New Hampshire. 

School gardens are also gaining popularity. In the not-too-distant future the school garden may be so vital to the educational program that it will not fall prey to budget cuts. 

The development of these school gardens will likely happen school by school, rather than on a statewide basis as has been the case in California, where last fall the state legislature passed, and the governor signed into law, Bill AB 1014-Instructional School Gardens-which encourages every public school to include a garden as an instructional tool, and acknowledges the value of gardens in teaching a wide range of subjects. Increasing access to public and school-based children's gardens will prompt interest in developing children's gardens elsewhere in the community. 

Home gardens that invite children to explore the natural world are also critical if we are to be successful in passing on an understanding and appreciation of the responsibilities involved in stewardship of the earth to the next generation.

Community Involvement 
"School gardens are a great vehicle for involving the community in non-traditional ways including business partnerships, after school programs, and grounds beautification," says Lisa Glick, a consultant who has been involved in garden-based learning programs for 15 years. "The school garden as an outdoor classroom can become a focal point of the community." 

A case in point is Dryden Elementary School in rural upstate New York, which draws from a large geographic area. To enhance a sense of community among the widely distributed students and their families, Marcia Eames Sheavly and a group of parent volunteers decided to develop a school garden two years ago. 

The day the beds were prepared, a large and supportive turnout of 120 children, parents, teachers, and administrators joined in a "bucket brigade" to build and fill the beds. The plantings in the beds reflect themes drawn from the curriculum of each grade level. The garden has expanded as the gardeners-young and not-so-young-have gained confidence and community interest has grown.

Involving Children 
If children's gardens are to be successful, they must be focused on children's needs and expectations. What better way to achieve this focus and to encourage a proprietary attitude toward the garden than to involve kids as active members of the design team? 

The Wardcliff "All Stars" garden is a good example of how well this approach works. At the AHS Children and Youth Gardening Symposium pre-conference workshop to be held in June, a session called "Gardens for Kids by Kids" will have children designing their own gardens. In the school garden, children should be given responsibility for almost everything. It should be theirs in practice, not just in name. In addition to planting and maintenance, children can determine and create the presentation and programming. 

Older children can 'buddy' with younger children to explore the garden, study plants, or simply read and write stories in the garden. Well over half of young children in this country today spend significant time in day care and pre-school. 

These environments can be vital catalysts for learning. Children's gardens must respond to the needs and interests of these children. Seats in the Storybook Garden at the Michigan 4-H Children's Garden are only 10 inches tall. Pint-sized visitors may encounter Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, and their buddies-characters they can relate to-while they climb over the Billy Goats' Gruff bridge or hide beneath the branches of a weeping mulberry. Exposure to engaging children's gardens and natural interactive discovery experiences can influence attitudes that will last a lifetime.

State and National Educational Standards 
A garden-both its content and context-offers unique opportunities to address and meet new educational standards. Children's gardens can help achieve the national science goal established by the National Research Council in 1996 that students "experience the richness and excitement of knowing about and understanding the natural world." 

What better place to gain such experience than in a garden, exploring plants and the interactions among plants, animals, insects, weather, and people? Public children's gardens are successfully addressing the need to relate their programs to state and national educational standards. "School gardens are not just for teaching science, they can be used to teach any subject," says David Pippin, education coordinator at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia. 

He explains that their children's garden reflects state standards for Virginia schools beyond the science curriculum. Since ancient Egypt is part of the second grade social studies curriculum, the garden established an area reflecting plants-including dill, papyrus, bay laurel, melons, and basil-grown by ancient Egyptians. Woodcuts depicting Egyptian gods that relate to children and agriculture were constructed on plywood, and placed in the garden. 

By combining history, art, and science into the lesson, children are provided a richer educational experience, and teachers are assisted in their efforts to meet state educational standards.

Children's Garden Information 
Information on all aspects of children's gardens from the very first planning steps to developing programming and integrating technology are becoming more available (see "Resources," page 23 of American Gardener magazine). The AHS Children and Youth Gardening symposia and regional workshops are expanding their outreach. In addition, there is an extensive range of resources available on the Internet. The "Growing Gardens" program of the Michigan 4-H Children's Garden is a summer workshop designed for children and adults interested in children's gardens. It includes instruction on: planning and designing, fundraising, constructing, and maintaining the garden as well as suggestions for garden curricula.

Computer Technology 
Today, children use computers in almost every facet of their daily lives. Children's gardens must take advantage of the opportunities technology offers to enhance and expand garden experiences. 

Through programs like the Michigan 4-H Children's Garden's "Connected Classrooms" children will soon be able to link directly with scientists and garden experts for assistance with their questions. Children will take digital photographs of their activities, create Web pages of information, explore increasingly complex problems, and work on individual assignments or group projects in ways that were not possible until recently. 

Technology will allow exciting linkages and interactions among children's gardens in communities, states, the nation, and the world, helping to grow a new generation of gardeners who have access to resources, information, and experiences we never imagined.

Shaping Our Future 
Children's gardens-garden spaces designed to engage children and meet their specific needs-are important components of the gardening landscape today and in the future. Through these gardens children will experience the beauty, wonder, and importance of plants and will establish long-lasting attitudes about gardens and nature. Children's gardens throughout the country are shaping the next generation of American gardeners and citizens!

Norman Lownds is curator of the Michigan 4-H Children's Garden at Michigan State University in Lansing and chairman of the AHS National Youth Garden Advisory Panel.

A Child's Backyard in the New Millennium-A Return to Nature's Play Equipment
By Molly Dannenmaier

A century ago, most kids navigated the land freely. They climbed trees, swam in creeks, built ramshackle huts in the woods. Swing sets, sliding boards, and other manufactured outdoor children's play equipment had yet to become a part of the American backyard. Children had to call upon their own ingenuity and the playthings nature provided to amuse themselves. Parents, comfortable and familiar with the outdoors, rarely attempted to shield children from the possible dangers of playing there.

Today, a myriad of inventions and lifestyle changes is creating a young generation with far less intimate knowledge of the physical world. School buses, television, radio, CD players, video games, the internet, and a myriad of after school lessons all conspire to keep children away from the "dangers" of unsupervised outdoor life. When they do play outdoors, it's often on a sterile playground, field, or flat, chain-linked yard where all the botanical complexity has been stripped away in favor of "safety" and "ease of care."

But children need to learn about nature from nature itself, asserts Herb Schaal, designer of the new Children's Garden at the Cleveland Botanical Garden, who has observed a conscious backlash against the pervasiveness of simulated materials. "As fewer natural experiences are a part of people's everyday lives, the more they crave the chance to get back to environments that are not recreations or simulations of nature but are the real thing itself."

And who, if not the adult passionate about his or her own relationship with nature, is best equipped to pass on a legacy of intimate outdoor experience to the next generation of children? Who will the next generation of outdoor stewards be if we raise children unfamiliar with the joy of nature's everyday caresses?

How Adults Can Pass on a Love of Gardens to the Next Generation?

Prepare the Environment. Like every good teacher knows, planning is crucial. Think about what your child likes to do: Cut? Draw? Dig? Water? Hunt for slugs? Gather the equipment necessary-scissors, chalk, a trowel, a watering can--to let him choose from a variety of independent adventures during your joint outdoor enterprise. Let him give the weeds a haircut. Let him draw on your garden walls or walkway with chalk. Let him water your plants. Let him dig a hole, fill it with water, and float leaves. Let him hunt through the firewood for invertebrates. Go on with your own gardening activities while he explores through play.

Be Patient. Don't be disappointed if your well-crafted plan to plant a moonflower patch with your three-year-old turns into a free-for-all of flying dirt and spilled seeds. She will have a wonderful time just being outdoors with you if you can maintain a sense of whimsy and flexibility.

Let Your Teaching Follow the Child. While planning is important, sometimes it's more effective to let the child's discoveries and moments of excitement dictate where the lesson will flow. If the child finds a ladybug while watering a tomato plant, tell her how ladybugs help in the garden by eating up aphids, then see if you can find some aphids and tell her what they do. If the child digs holes close to your lemon balm or any other fragrant plant, rub its leaves or pull its head forward and let her smell. Take her to other fragrant spots in the garden. Appeal to the child's senses, and she will eventually seek knowledge on her own.

Provide space for experiments. Set aside room so kids can grow their own unusual plants. Atlanta landscape architect Mary Palmer Dargan says many of the families with whom she works have started plots of miniature vegetables like 'Tom Thumb' lettuce, 'Bambino' eggplant, and 'Sugarbaby' watermelon. If you have trouble sharing your garden space, it may be best to designate a specific area as "the kids' garden." It doesn't have to be huge; a window box or large planter, filled with pungent herbs, luscious tomatoes, or colorful flowers can be very rewarding for a child, and won't require hours of weeding. And if they decide to grow crabgrass and dandelions, well, see "Be Patient" above.