Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Integrating nature into the school environment is as easy as growing a garden.

It can be food gardens; it can be butterfly gardens.

It can also be a wildscape or even a water garden, says Kiki Corry, Project Wild Coordinator. A conference later this month—Get Growing, Keep Going!—shows teachers how to create such spaces for learning…and not just for learning about science.

Well, that’s the fun thing about using the outdoors, is it isn’t just science. It’s very interdisciplinary because perhaps you first do some observations, and then you might need to draw a picture of what you’ve found—and so you bring the arts in—then you might need to write about it a little bit and then that’s language arts. And then you might be curious about what this land was used for in the past, and so, then there’s history. And so, you can use the outdoors for so many different subjects.

A deliberately planted garden, says Corry, has its advantages as a teaching tool over other living things.

One thing—they’re a little more predictable than just wild space. Besides, of the living things that there are to study, plants are a little easier, because they don’t wander away. (laughs) They’re there the next day—usually. (laughs) And, you can use them to attract animals.

The Get Growing, Keep Going conference is October 25 in Austin—details tomorrow. Until then, continue this story online at passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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Register online:
http://www.redeemerschool.net/links/gardeningconference.html

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