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July 2010

This Month's Features
Announcements
Resources for Educators
Conferences and Workshops
Funding Opportunities

This Month's Teachers' Room Feature: Hummingbirds: Tiny Travelers
By observing hummingbirds, children can learn about such important concepts as the interactions and interdependence among plant and animal species, the hummingbirds’ innate drive to migrate, and their behavior and habitat—all while employing math, geography, science, and critical-thinking skills. Visit the Teachers' Room

This Month's Family Room Feature: Creating a Family Butterfly Garden
A butterfly garden provides a colorful array of nectar-producing plants that not only attract butterflies and hummingbirds, but can also draw your children to explore the intricate relationships of plants and animals. With the appropriate plantings, your garden provides opportunities to educate your children about the life cycle of a butterfly and allows them to view each stage of growth. Visit the Family Room.

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Announcements

Kidsgardening.org Visitor Survey
We want your feedback! Take a few minutes to fill out our Kidsgardening.org Visitor Survey and enter a drawing to win a $100 gift card to the Gardening with Kids Shop. The survey is available at: http://survey.garden.org/takesurvey/2451.

Welch’s Harvest Grants Winners in Action
Watch videos from the 2010 Welch’s Harvest Grants Grand Prize Winners: Myers Elementary, Springport Elementary, Clearwater Middle, Cesar Chavez Science Magnet Elementary, P.S. 134, Whitefoord Elementary, and John D. Philbrick Elementary.

Jamba Juice and National Gardening Association Launch Sip to Support a Garden™
To promote health, wellness and physical activitiy, Jamba Juice and NGA are partnering to implement a program focused on four core elements: gardening, fruit tree plantings, nutrition education and volunteerism. Through Sip to Support A Garden™,  schools and garden organizations will have the ability to earn year-round funding for their gardens through Jamba’s Community Appreciation Card. Additional support will be available through the It’s All About the Fruit™ Grants. This grant program will provide schools with $500 fruit tree planting grants to create long-term sustainable solutions and resources for schools and communities.  To kick off the grant program, Jamba and NGA announced that the first grants are being awarded to five schools in the Sacramento City Unified School District: Oak Ridge Elementary School, Bowling Green K-6 School, Leonardo Da Vinci K-8 School, Will C. Wood Middle School, and Rosa Parks Middle School.  Additional details and applications will be available soon. Click here for more information about this exciting new partnership.

2011 Mantis Award Application ~ Deadline: March 1, 2011
The Mantis Awards recognize charitable and educational garden projects that enhance the quality of life in their host communities.  The 25 recipients receive Mantis tiller/cultivators. Download an application.

2009 Scotts GroGood Campaign in Review
To encourage Americans to grow more of their own food, Scotts Miracle-Gro, along with its nonprofit partners the National Gardening Association, Garden Writers Association, Plant a Row for the Hungry, Franklin Park Conservatory, and Keep America Beautiful, initiated the GroGood campaign. The campaign asked all Americans to grow more food for themselves and others. To launch the GroGood campaign, Scotts Miracle-Gro donated 1 million pounds of produce to food banks nationwide and called on Americans to help by pledging to grow and donate an additional 1 million pounds of fresh produce to help feed those at risk for hunger. Click here for details.

The Growing Classroom Training
Those who want to provide educators in their area with the tools for success should consider hosting a Growing Classroom Training. Presented by the Life Lab Science Program and the National Gardening Association, this two-day workshop is ideal for those interested in supplementing their existing science program with garden-based learning. Using The Growing Classroom activity guide for grades 2-6, participants will experience hands-on activities, learn basic science concepts and gardening techniques, and develop management strategies for a school gardening program. Click here for more details.

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Resources for Educators

RHS Campaign for School Gardening
The Royal Horticultural Society has published new research touting the benefits of school garden programs. They identified three core areas of radical improvement in participating youth including readiness to learn, resiliency, and sense of responsibility. Click here to download the full report.

A White House Garden Cookbook
Written by Clara Silverstein, this book chronicles the first year of the White House Garden in great detail from planning to harvest and includes recipes from the First Family and youth garden programs from around the country.  It also includes interesting historical accounts from past presidents and facts about different fruits and vegetables. It is an entertaining, engaging, and educational book for gardeners of all ages.  For more information, visit the Red Rock Press website or the White House Garden Cookbook Facebook page.

Research Study: The Eastside Wellness Program
Launched in January 2009 by the Diabetes Resource Center, the Eastside Wellness Program at Franklin Elementary School in Santa Barbara, CA offers students a comprehensive health education program that includes raised bed gardens and lessons from the Junior Master Gardener Curriculum. The physical fitness, nutrition and gardening activities provided by the EWC to Franklin students combine to provide a comprehensive approach to obesity prevention designed to develop lasting behaviors to support fitness and healthy nutrition. Research results are very encouraging.  Based on BMI data, during the pilot year of 2009 the prevalence of obesity decreased from 30 percent to 25 percent, and the prevalence of overweight and obesity combined decreased from 55 percent to 42 percent in this time period. Click here for more details.

Get Dirty with Dirt! The Movie
It’s time to learn more about the dirt that our very survival depends on and Dirt! The Movie is a fun way to learn! Dirt! The Movie uses animation and humor to tell the story of Earth's most valuable and underappreciated source of fertility--from its miraculous beginning to its crippling degradation. The film offers a vision of a sustainable relationship between Humans and Dirt through profiles of global visionaries who are determined to repair the damage we've done before it's too late. If you care about your food, water, the air you breathe, your health and happiness...it's time to see DIRT! The Movie, roll up your sleeves for action and Get Dirty.

Imagine This ~ Deadline: November 1
California schools are invited to submit student stories for this annual writing content focused on understanding of agriculture in our lives. For more information vist: www.cfaitc.org/imaginethis.

Dig Art!
The Cornell Garden-Based Learning Program has created an innovative new project guide for youth that integrates gardening with the arts called Dig Art! Cultivating Creativity in the Garden. The activities in the guide help teach ecological literacy and inspire enthusiasm for garden-based learning through the lens of visual art, music, and performance. Dig Art! is available online at www.hort.cornell.edu/digart.

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