Students take part in a Math in the Garden curriculum pilot.

"During a Saturday workshop for a group of teenage girls, we told them they would be working with graphs," shares Math in the Garden Project Director Jenny White. "Groans filled the room. Then we distributed plates with an array of flowers and asked them to pick an attribute and make a graph of their flowers. The attitude and enthusiasm for the activity soared. Girls began making comments that they had 'never made a real graph before' and 'this graph is really beautiful.' As they progressed to making symbolic and then abstract versions of the same graphs, one teen summed up the group's attitude when she said, 'I never knew what those "x's" meant on a graph before. Now I do.'"

Jenny was using the activity "Flowers: Graph and Graph Again" from the curriculum guide Math in the Garden. "I have always loved math and math puzzles. I thought how wonderful it would be if we could use the beauty and enthusiasm for plants to help people get over their fears and apprehension of mathematics." Jenny, retired Associate Education Director of the UC Botanical Garden, began recruiting colleagues who were experienced curriculum developers and loved gardening and outdoor learning to collaborate on guide educators could used "to strengthen and improve mathematics understanding and skills through exploring the world of plants in their gardens."

Math in the Garden, funded by a National Science Foundation grant, is the result of this effort. It uses a mathematical lens to take children on engaging learning explorations of the garden. The 36 activities and extension ideas not only hone math skills, they also promote inquiry and incorporate language arts and nutrition. All were developed to support mathematics and science standards and were extensively trial-tested nationwide by formal and informal educators.

Students sample weed species for analysis.

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden was invited to be a pilot site for Math in the Garden. BBG introduced the curriculum to educators in teacher training sessions and to children through summer gardening programs. It got enthusiastic responses from both audiences.

School Programs Manager, Barbara Kurland, finds that the curriculum is an excellent resource for helping educators "incorporate gardening activities across the curriculum." "Although it easy to suggest the idea of integrating the garden to teach multiple disciplines," the curriculum provides solid examples and the activities are unique and inventive. She points out that although the book is written to be used in an outdoor garden, "the lessons are useful to teachers even if they don't have the resources of a school garden" - a concern in urban settings. Teachers can get many of the supplies from the grocery store and use them with indoor gardens, such as GrowLabs and windowsill gardens.

As for student reactions, one of the experiences that stands out in Barbara's mind came after delivering the lesson on symmetry using leaves and fruit (activities "Find that Line" and "Symmetry Inside Fruit"). At the end of the lesson, one of the children approached her to let her know that they learned about symmetry at school, but "we just used shapes cut out of cardboard - this is so much more fun and interesting. I never thought to look in the real world for symmetry." For Barbara, this was a sign that by "seeing it come alive in the garden, the children got it." She agrees that an important benefit of the curriculum is that it gives kids "skills they can apply to the rest of their lives, such as measuring, organization and using tools." For instance the "Area and Perimeter of Leaves" activity introduces students to alternative measuring tools (such as using beans to measure and compare leaf sizes), and ultimately teaches them about the value of creative problem-solving strategies. Another BBG instructor described the lessons as "Practical; kids used math to do something 'real.'"

Project Co-Director Kathy Barrett, current Associate Director for Education at the University of California Botanical Garden and former biology teacher, concurs. "[Math in the Garden gives] children practical experience applying mathematics to real life situations…and the activities also promote science and language arts as children work together to observe and share their investigations."

"While trial-testing 'Inside the Coordinate Grid' during a summer school program at Martin Luther King Middle School, we struggled to get the students out to the garden and organized into teams. They clearly did not want to be at school, and math was the last subject on earth they wanted to study. Once they entered the giant garden grid and began locating the mystery spots, they became enthusiastic, helping each other and eventually creating their own mystery spots. One of the girls remarked that she finally understood the coordinate grids in her math book."

In addition to the glowing reactions from students, Jenny also received positive feedback from teachers and administrators. "Teachers who have trial-tested the activities tell us that their students develop real understanding as a result of participating. The superintendent of a local school district credits Math in the Garden with increasing test scores in children from those schools who had adopted the program."

If you'd like to order Math in the Garden, please visit NGA's Gardening with Kids store.