Gardening as an outdoor education option provides students with a purpose for their learning. Early spring, students at Mallinckrodt and Shaw VPA broadcasted lettuce seeds in their garden bed and called it a salad bowl. Well, it is looking beautiful and growing wonderfully.
Students learned to harvest the lettuce and with the help from MU extension agent Diana Finlay they made a salad and ate it in their garden this week.
Along the way, they learned science lessons in plant lifecycle and plant parts and picked up valuable life skills such as hard work, focus, persistence, follow though and team work.
As an educator, I am overjoyed when these students describe lettuce from the garden as sweet or beg to eat raw collard greens or thoroughly weed an entire bed full of purple nettle in 15 minutes or less.
Do you have a garden at your school that is underused? Remember, it doesn’t take a lot to get started. At Gateway Greening, we have resources that can help you extend your classroom outdoors through gardening. For weekly inspiration be sure to check our quick little garden videos.