2017 Moments of the Month
November 2017 Moment of the Month
When kids are leaning in, we know they are enjoying learning!
These second grade students on a field trip to our Blooming Classroom are dissecting seeds to look for the "young plant" on the inside (the little root tendrils that hide at the edge of the cotyledon). They went on to examine diverse edible seeds and taste both raw and roasted pumpkin seeds, too. This seed exploration day ended with a "sneaky seed" activity, in which the students plant seeds in sneaky hiding places throughout the garden. This particular class really enjoyed dissecting the seeds, and the students kept asking for more seeds to dissect!
May 2017 Moment of the Month
Spring Harvest & Planting for Fall!
A healthful harvest of beets, kohlrabi, and carrots was an exciting part of our spring science and nutrition field trip activities for Watsonville elementary school students at our Blooming Classroom in Watsonville.
Students at one of our Watsonville partner schools, Amesti Elementary, plant flowers in their school garden to be part of their pollinator and seed lessons this fall. We'll help the school take care of the garden while school is out, and these students will find BIG, flowering plants there when they return to school in August!
We hope your spring has been full of tasty fresh produce and garden fun, too :-)
March 2017 Moment of the Month
With the coming of spring, Life Lab trainers were out in full force, inspiring educators to cultivate children's love of learning, healthy food, and nature in school gardens across the nation. It was too hard to choose just one photo to share, so here is a glimpse of each workshop in March!
Getting their Spring Flower Bling on! These teachers at New Horizon School in Pasadena, CA, were bringing learning to life at a Growing Classroom workshop.
Old Adobe School in Petaluma, CA, hosted Life Lab for a fourth time in the past two years. At this all-staff training we made and sampled three massaged kale salads and graphed our favorite using a "kale marker".
At the California Farm-to-School and School Gardens Conference, we led two workshops for more than 90 educators on Innovative Garden Design and Funding Your School Garden.
Plumas Unified School District brought us to Quincy, CA, to help their educators bring Next Generation Science to life in their county's school gardens.
Twenty-five educators from across the state joined us at a Next Generation Science in the Garden workshop at the Life Lab Garden Classroom in Santa Cruz, CA.
The University of Florida and Bok Towers Garden brought us to Lake Wales, FL, to model garden-based learning for teacher teams from five schools.
February 2017 Moment of the Month
Have you ever made a garden on a cracker?
These third grade students from Watsonville's Starlight Elementary School have!
As part of weekly field trips at our Blooming Classroom, children from several Pajaro Valley Unified School District elementary schools are "eating a rainbow" this winter by creating this beautiful edible art. They also learn about how these nutritious, colorful foods help us grow and thrive. Not to mention, the fun they have makes these often new foods taste even better. A "soil" surface of bean dip (that they make from scratch!) topped with a variety of veggies makes for quite a treat!
January 2017 Moment of the Month
Watsonville School Garden Crew! Carol and Valerie are part of a crew of five college interns working and learning in our Watsonville School Garden Project this season. Each week, the team works with Life Lab staff to build and renovate school gardens at Pajaro Valley Unified School District elementary schools and to support teachers in delivering hands-on lessons in the garden with students. Breathing life into gardens in need of love and developing future school garden educators is a great combination. We look forward to growing the WSG Crew to include more interns and schools!