Including All Children
Designing Accessible Garden Programs Using Multiple Intelligences and Universal Design Principals

Author: Carrie Banks

Accessibility for individuals with disabilities is more than a lack of barriers — it is the creation of a friendly environment that allows full participation in all events. Gardening with groups of children with and without disabilities is easier than it sounds. At Brooklyn Public Library’s Our Garden Club we‘ve been gardening this way for 10 years, using the theory of Multiple Intelligences and Universal Design principals as a foundation.  

Our Garden Club (OGC) is an inclusive, literature-based recreational gardening program offered by The Child’s Place for Children with Special Needs at two neighborhood libraries. At each session, children explore gardening and nature through books, music, movement, crafts, and gardening activities in our sensory gardens.

The program is open to children of all ages, with and without disabilities, including those with developmental delays, cerebral palsy, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), multiple disabilities, mental illness, on the autism spectrum, and who are deaf or blind. We encourage families and individuals to let us know how we can structure the programs and facilities to best meet their needs.  

OGC programs were developed using a Multiple Intelligences approach to learning. This theory proposes that humans learn and process information through a broad range of methods, and that as a society we should encourage people to develop all of their intelligences, including visual/spatial, bodily/kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal.1 More recently the theory has been expanded to include naturalist intelligence and spiritual/religious intelligence.2

Using this framework, OGC activities are designed to encompass different learning styles. Program components offer visual, aural, olfactory, and textural appeal. Books and songs help to involve musical and verbal learners. Gardening and movement activities encourage kinesthetic learning. The program’s structure supports a logical/mathematical style of learning and exploring patterns and using quantitative analysis further engages these learners. Computers and gardening tools engage technological/mechanical learners. The garden setting draws in natural learners. OGC staff and volunteers help spiritual learners develop existential themes, ranging from “why are there butterflies?” to “does the sky in my picture have to be blue?” and facilitate interpersonal learning (relationships between people) and intrapersonal learning (self-awareness).

Designing the program for all children is the key to making inclusion work. If a child who is blind or has poor gross motor skills shows up unexpectedly, it is important that the program be designed so that there’s no need to scramble to adapt it to meet that child’s needs. Here we are guided by principles of Universal Design3 and an offshoot, Universal Design for Learning (UDL).4 For example, OCG programs use multiple means of representation — words, movement, music, art, discussion, and technology — to describe planting. Sign language and pictorial communication systems can further engage learners. These tools give children a variety of ways to demonstrate what they know. They can plant, do an art project about planting, sing or compose a song or dance about planting, discuss it with a friend or the group leader, write a poem, or tweet about it — accounting for multiple means of expression. Each of these approaches also represents a mode of interaction or means of engagement.

Guided by these philosophies, our goal is to help every child, regardless of his or her abilities, fit seamlessly into OGC’s planned activities and feel truly welcome.

Carrie is Director of Brooklyn Public Library’s (BPL) The Child’s Place for Children with Special Needs. She has helped draft national guidelines for serving people with disabilities in public libraries and has an extensive background in working with youth with special needs.

Carrie is a member of the Kidsgardening Advisory Board. These youth gardening experts and advocates from around the country provide NGA staff with ideas, suggestions, and feedback for kidsgardening.org

1 7 Kinds of Smart: Identifying and Developing Your Many Intelligences. Thomas Armstrong. 1993. Penguin Books, NY. 
2 “Multiple Intelligences after Twenty Years.” Howard Gardner. 2003. Harvard Graduate School of Education. www.pz.harvard.edu/PIs/HG_MI_after_20_years.pdf
3 Universal Design Education Online. Center for Universal Design, N.C. State University; IDEA Center, University at Buffalo; Global Universal Design Educator's Network. www.udeducation.org.
4 Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST). www.cast.org/research/udl/index.html.