School Gardens

The Williamson County and Cities Health District envisions a community in which our children grow up eating five fruits and vegetables every day, exercising daily, and spending time outdoors. We believe that gardens on school grounds are a great tool to make this vision become a reality. Williamson County currently has 12 school garden sites. These sites include

• Georgetown ISD Elementary Schools (8)
• Florence Head Start
• Bartlett Head Start
• Liberty Hill Head Start
• Rawleigh Elliott Head Start

Each school site above implements the garden into their daily activities through a series of steps and helpful tools.

• Planting seeds in cups
• Plant seedlings
• Maintenance and nurturing
• Harvesting
• Curriculum
• Field Trips
• Evaluation

Please take some time to explore the school sites, tools, activities and then contact us if you are interested in starting your own school garden.

Planting Seeds in Cups

The first two months of the fall and spring semester is ideal to plant seeds in cups. The children do this themselves in the classroom with the help of their teachers, parents, and WCCHD staff/interns. After the seeds are planted they are placed by a window sill and watered by the children. During this growing time, the children, teachers and parents conduct curriculum activities, such as developing growth charts, timelines, projections, taste tests. Once the plants are root bound (typically 6-8 weeks), the children transplant them to the outdoor garden bed. Parent involvement is strongly encouraged throughout.

Planting Seedlings

When the plants are root bound in the small cups, it’s time to plant them in the outdoor garden bed. This is an excellent activity for the children to do with the help of their parents, teachers and WCCHD staff and interns. Instructions and guidelines for proper planting techniques can be found in the gardening curriculum.

Maintenance and Nurturing

Once the seedlings (plants) have been planted in the outdoor garden bed the children then have the responsibility of watering and caring for the plants. A watering schedule is developed by the classroom teachers. Each class has a turn is watering the garden. Watering tips and techniques are provided in the gardening curriculum.

Harvesting

When it’s time to harvest the veggies, let the children do it. How awesome it is when a child sees for the first time a carrot being pulled out of the ground. They have worked so hard for this reward. Let them eat it right there at the garden, take it in the classroom for snack time, send it home with a healthy recipe, or deliver it to a local food bank. Tips and techniques on when to harvest are provided in the gardening curriculum.

Curriculum

The Williamson County and Cities Health District, along with two interns from Texas A&M University, developed three gardening curriculums. They reveal an extensive search of ideas on how to integrate gardening into a Head Start Center, a Pre-K program within a school district, and any after school program. The information and activities provided are only meant to serve as a guide, use your own creativity when implementing them.

To help encourage and support the utilization of the curriculums in the classroom the Head Start Curriculum has been aligned with the Head Start Performance Standards, and the Pre-K and after school curriculum has been aligned with the TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills). This means that particular activities in each curriculum meet the teaching objectives required in Head Start and Texas School Districts. What a fun way to teach your objectives through gardening. A Southwestern University intern completed all three alignment projects.

Field Trips

At least once a school year each participating Head Start, Pre-K, and after school program is invited to the Heritage Community Gardens for a field trip. The field trip is designed to expand and support what they are learning in the classroom while using the gardening curriculum. Various hands-on activities are scheduled in a 2-hour fun filled, jam packed, investigative journey through gardening, nature, nutrition, and physical activity and include Making healthy snacks Crafts Fun lifelong physical activities Science/nature explorations and investigations Reading and relaxation

These field trips are also open to any youth group, classroom, daycare, or playgroup. You do not have to have the gardening curriculum to participate. If you are interested in scheduling a field trip please complete the field trip interest form. Please note that due to a decrease in funding to support these field trip activities, the Health District will need to charge a $2.00 fee per child attending a field trip as of January 1, 2006. This money will be used to purchase craft, science, physical activity supplies and ingredients for snacks. These supplies will be used by the children as they rotate throughout each station. Thank you for your understanding and support.

For further questions please contact us.

Evaluation

This is a very important piece in our gardening program.  We want to make sure that what we are doing is supporting behavior change as well as easy to implement.  We have chosen to evaluate the gardening curriculum for its user friendliness as well as a change in the children’s knowledge and behavior.  To do this all staff and teachers within participating Head Starts, Pre-K’s and after school programs are asked to complete a questionnaire/evaluation at the beginning and end of each school year.  The children participate in a taste test and draw pictures of fruits and vegetables at the beginning and end of each school year.  We are hoping to find positive behavior changes with these children in the next 3-5 years.

© 2004 Williamson County & Cities Health District