Garden Based Education » Books

Garden Based Education at Lifelab

heide — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 08:14:18 +0000

Here are two other great resources for Garden-Based Learning Instruction. They can be found and reviewed here
The Growing Classsroom
This award-winning resource book for educators contains 480 pages of science, math, and language arts activities that you can do with your students in the garden. Activities are aligned with California Science Content Standards. Topics include soil, plants, cycles, ecology, weather, nutrition, and food systems. Also includes team-building and sensory exploration activities, organic gardening skills, and information on how to create and sustain a successful school garden program.

Life Lab Science K-5 Garden Based Curriculum
Life Lab Science Program offers teacher friendly, hands-on units that children can dig into! Recognized by the Smithsonian Institute as an “outstanding curriculum, ” Life Lab Science is a core curriculum which integrates earth, life, and physical science concepts within the context of a Living Laboratory school garden. Inquiry-oriented lessons, both outdoors and in the classroom, encourage students to ask questions and explore multiple solutions.

Hands-on Activities that Bring Math to Life

heide — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:08:48 +0000

Math in the Garden, This wonderful Book is developed through a partnership of
University of California Botanical Garden and Lawrence Hall of Science Berkeley, California.
This book is for Educator/Parents with students Age 5-13.

ISBN-13: 978-0-915873-46-3

Book recommended by Erika Thu for Halloween called Pumpkin Circle written by George Levenson

heide — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:19:53 +0000

PUMPKIN CIRCLE: The Story of A Garden.
The Story of A Garden is an award-winning video and picture book, produced by George Levenson. This project is designed to show elementary school children the miraculous cycle of nature in a backyard pumpkin patch. Pumpkin Circle is a 20 minute live action video narrated in verse by Danny Glover with original music by George Winston. The video shows the changes in the plants over the four seasons with seeds sprouting, flowers opening, bees buzzing, pumpkins growing, and jack-o-lanterns glowing. The picture book, also written in verse, is filled with dramatic color photographs and allows children to learn the story of this amazing plant at their own pace. The video and book are perfect for Fall pumpkin studies, Springtime planting, science, environmental education and language arts. Suitable for ages 4 and up. The book and video are also available in Spanish — EL CÍRCULO DE LAS CALABAZAS: Historia de un huerto. For more information and reviews visit our PUMPKIN CIRCLE website.
http://www.informeddemocracy.com/

Outrageous Learning by Scott Oki

heide — Sun, 31 May 2009 02:10:45 +0000

It is no secret that K-12 public education in the United States is in crisis. Schools are plagued by poor student achievement, low graduation rates, entrenched unions, demoralized teachers and disaffected parents, when by rights U.S. schools should be the finest in the world. The troubles of the nation’s schools have caught the attention of software innovator and philanthropist Scott Oki. In this thought provoking new book, Oki describes the ills facing public schools and coolly applies the same frank, no-nonsense analysis that made him one of the most successful top executives at Microsoft and a recognized leader in the technology world.

Books we recommend

heide — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 20:18:34 +0000

Discovering the Naturalist Intelligence: Science in the School Yard by Jenna Glock, et al. This book is based on Gardner’s work with mutliple intelligences. It proposes that one of the intelligences is for nature and the natural sciences. The book presents solid, interesting lessons for cultivating the Naturalist Intelligence.

Math in the Garden: Hands-on Activities That Bring Math to Life by Jennifer White, et al. This book contains many wonderful math activities that are garden based. The areas of math covered are number, operations, algebra, measurements, geometry and data analysis. All the activities are graded for ages 5 through 13. Excellent activities that are well structured.

Howard Gardner is a professor of cognition and education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He’s also the author of over 20 books and several hundred scholarly articles. Gardner is probably best known in educational circles for his theory of multiple intelligences, which is a critique of the notion that there exists but a single human intelligence that can be assessed by standard psychometric instruments.