Sunday, November 16, 2008

Barbara Kingsolver, in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Kingsolver writes about the rise of school gardens. I actually copied out several paragraphs verbatim from her book, only to lose it. But here is the curriculum in a nutshell:
kindergarten: flowers for learning colors and planting popcorn
gr. 2: garden for hummingbirds, bees and butterflies to learn about pollination
gr. 3: pizza garden to teach plant kingdom
gr. 4: herb garden laid out like those of Colonial Virginia

2 comments:

  1. Hi Lynette,

    Since you hit on one of my passions..preserving little spaces of green, I thought I would elborate on some of the enviromental psychology (and not this does not mean talking to trees)literature of why it is so important to save not only huge tracts of wilderness but why we as humans need a bit of green nearby, here's one reason why: (I was going to list several reasons but the kids decided to act up right now..)

    We have better mental health. Studies spanning 30 years have time and time again showed that even just having a view of nature helps reduce stress, recover from illness faster, improve mental functioning (response time, cognitive thinking, etc.). One of the newest breakthrough studies have been with children and ADHD--spending time in nature reduces symptoms. I have a collegue who is studying elementary students' test scores and views of nature from the classroom and time spent outside in nature.

    Cheers,
    Jenna

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  2. Wow, I know this from personal experience, but hadn't even thought of studies with children and their psychical health. So our parents' conventional wisdom of "Just go play outside!" has some fundamental truth. I wonder what the history of recess is, and if it grew from this belief too. What do you think of the nature schools that are out there (no traditional indoor classrooms, etc?)

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