Join us for a FREE 4-part virtual workshop series supported by National Geographic Society. Learn how to start, sustain and use a school vegetable garden as a catalyst to promote student learning! Online workshops will be held on April 22, April 29, May 6, and May 14 from 7:00-8:00 PM Eastern Time.
Starting a School Vegetable Garden 101
Wednesday April 22, 2020, 7:00-8:00PM Eastern Time
Come learn how to setup a school vegetable garden that will enable students to participate in seed to table growing each spring and fall. In this workshop, we will discuss the academic and health benefits of a school vegetable garden program, our typical program structure and format, tips for building a garden, creating a garden map and plan for seasonal crop rotation, as well as the time commitment and resources necessary for the implementation of a successful program.
Sustaining a School Vegetable Garden
Wednesday April 29, 2020, 7:00-8:00 PM Eastern Time
This workshop will equip you with additional science knowledge and guidance to make the most of your vegetable gardening program and help ensure its long-term success. When you look for gardening information online, are you confused about what is reliable advice and what is not? Learning some basic science will help you answer questions like: Should my school build a raised bed garden or an in-ground garden? If so, what type of soil should we use? Why can some vegetable crops withstand freezing temperatures and others cannot? How long can I store seeds, and how do I take care of them? What’s the difference between composting with worms versus using a traditional compost pile? HFHK’s success in starting more than 30 school gardens is based on understanding and applying the underlying science. If you love gardening, this workshop is for you, even if you are not a science buff!
National Geographic Geo-Inquiry Workshop: Featuring an Example of a Food Insecurity Project
Wednesday May 6, 2020, 7:00-8:00PM Eastern Time
This workshop will introduce National Geographic’s Geo-Inquiry Process and highlight an example of how a school vegetable garden was used as part of a food insecurity project featuring a collaboration between a formal and nonformal educator. Come learn how National Geographic’s Geo-Inquiry process can further students’ understanding of the world and empower them to make a difference. The Geo-Inquiry Process is an integrated, five-phase, project-based learning process that connects real-world challenges to the classroom and is applicable for both formal and nonformal educators across disciplines and grade levels. In this interactive session, educators will learn strategies to help students develop critical thinking skills to ask geographic questions, collect information, visualize data, create compelling stories, and ultimately become advocates for change in their own communities.
Digging Deeper: The Garden as a Catalyst for interdisciplinary and Project-Based Learning
Thursday May 14, 2020, 7:00-8:00PM Eastern Time
This phenomenal panel of educators will inspire you with creative ways to incorporate a school vegetable garden into your curriculum. Come learn how educators have used the school garden as a catalyst for both interdisciplinary and project-based learning. Please see below to learn more about our panelists.
Trevor’s work emphasizes the relationship between education, law, and the environment, cultivating transformative learning rooted in systems understanding, scaled perspectives, and legacy. As a teacher, he authored and managed several six-figure grants bringing public-private stakeholders together to develop nature-based learning spaces at a public school in Austin, recognizing biophilic design, topophilic connections, community, and holistic learning as essential elements of human development. As part of the physical evolution of the campus, he designed and implemented a learning model that transformed the school to “The School for Enrichment and the Environment.”
An avid traveler and adventurer, Daniel spent the past two decades living, working and learning in international schools, nonprofits and social enterprises across more than 70 countries and all 7 continents, including an expedition to Antarctica in December 2018 as part of his fellowship with National Geographic. He has focused on developing transformative action-learning, place-based programs with several partners in education, exploration, conservation and innovation, and is using that experience to support schools, innovator, entrepreneurs and environmental organizations around the world. From his home in Hawaii, Daniel is launching and co-creating Pacific Blue Studios: a Pacific network of community and place-based, youth-led, design and impact studios leveraging biomimicry, indigenous innovation and cutting-edge technologies as vehicles to help realize a sustainable, resilient, regenerative and inclusive future in Hawai’i, across the Pacific, and around our Blue Planet.
As a Geography Educator, a National Geographic Explorer, a Grosvenor Teacher Fellow, and a parent, Judith encourages students (and her own children) to explore the natural world. Through a National Geographic grant, Beyond the Walls, Judith has spent most of the year having her students explore the natural and urban world around them. Additionally, Judith and a colleague are co-sponsors of the school garden in which they were encouraging teachers to explore with their students as the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders were issued. Now they have revised the school garden with the idea of creating a victory garden full of vegetables for school families.
Melissa is a National Board Certified social studies teacher in Wilmington, Delaware at Odyssey Charter School, an innovative and diverse dual language Greek school. Melissa currently teaches A.P. Human Geography, African-American History and Culture, U.S. History, and Food Studies at Odyssey and serves as the high school social studies department chair. Melissa is the KN-12th grade garden coordinator and the leader of the Green Team at her school. This past September Melissa participated in an expedition to the Galapagos as a 2019 Grosvenor Teacher Fellow with National Geographic and Lindblad Expeditions. Melissa is proud to be a Delaware educator, and she’s highly passionate about social justice, global studies, and ensuring that all students have opportunities to learn about food through the lens of power, the environment, and culture.
