DOE Home

Bureau of Curriculum and Instruction

School Gardens For Educators

Contact List

• Florida Nursery, Growers and Landscape Association (Excel, 23KB)
  Find gardening professionals in your area with this interactive list.
• UF/IFAS Extension (Excel, 108KB)
  Contact Master Gardeners in your district for help with your school garden.

Curriculum

• Educational Garden List (PDF)
  Offers ideas and creative ways to integrate a school garden into learning experiences.
• Farm to School & School Garden Research Consortium
  Coordinating research & evaluation efforts to strengthen farm to school and garden-based education programs, practices, and policies.
• Lesson Plans
  Find school garden lesson plans for all different subjects.
• What do Youth Learn from Participation in Garden Based Programs?(PDF, 206KB)
  What do Youth Learn from Participation in Garden Based Programs? (Word, 49KB)
  See how school gardens integrate all subject area content.
• Why Garden in New York State Schools? (PDF)
  Research by the Department of Horticulture at Cornell University explains the benefits of school gardens.
• NGSSS Correlated Gardening Activities
  Vegetable and fruit gardens in classrooms and schoolyards help teach crucial concepts to students. These documents include Florida Next Generation Sunshine State Standards correlated to benchmarks for the subjects listed below, with examples of activities leading the way.
  Art
  
  • Art - Grow into learning with school fruit and vegetable gardens! (Word, 174KB)
  • Art - Grow into learning with school fruit and vegetable gardens! (PDF, 121KB)
  Health
  
  • Health - Grow into learning with school fruit and vegetable gardens! (Word, 202KB)
  • Health - Grow into learning with school fruit and vegetable gardens! (PDF, 117KB)
  Physical Education
  
  • Physical Education - Grow into learning with school fruit and vegetable gardens! (Word, 176KB)
  • Physical Education - Grow into learning with school fruit and vegetable gardens! (PDF, 117KB)
  Social Studies Education
  • Social Studies Education - Grow into learning with school fruit and vegetable gardens! (Word, 168KB)
  • Social Studies Education - Grow into learning with school fruit and vegetable gardens! (PDF, 126KB)

Evaluation

• Florida School Garden Surveys
  The Florida Department of Education’s Food and Nutrition Management Section initiated two statewide surveys in May 2009 (Word, 117KB) and June 2010 (Word, 368KB) to assess the scope of school gardens throughout the state while gaining a better understanding on how to expand the program. Visit the links to access the survey results.
• Grow Your Program: Evaluation Toolkit
  Easy to use guidance, aimed at the educator with minimum experience with evaluation, for purposes of program improvement and documentation.
• Grow Your Program: Planning & Organizing
  The organizational steps needed to initiate a successful community gardening project with kids.

Growing Tips

• Composting for Kids! (PDF)
  Learn how to make compost and how to use it to grow beautiful gardens.
• Easy Steps for Teachers: Creating a Classroom Garden (PDF)
  Creating a school fruit or vegetable garden is easy with these 10 steps.
• Fall: The Garden Begins (and Ends) (PDF)
  See the steps to take to prepare a fall garden.
• Five Steps to Food Safe School Gardening (PDF)
  Here are five simple steps school gardeners follow to reduce the risk of foodborne illness from eating the produce from your school garden.
• Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide (PDF)
  Vegetables can be grown year-round in Florida if attention is paid to the appropriate planting dates.
• Food Safety in the School Garden (PDF)
  School gardens are generally safe, healthy, and enjoyable environments, but it is important to keep safety in mind when children are in the garden or consuming the fruits of their labor.
• Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide (PDF)
  Vegetables can be grown year-round in Florida if attention is paid to the appropriate planting dates.
• Fruits, Vegetable, and Herbs
  You can enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables by growing them in your own yard - even if you live in an urban area.
• Growing Fruit Crops in Containers
  A wide variety of fruit trees can be grown in containers with some degree of success.
• School Gardens: Growing for the Future
  These resources and tips were developed by Brevard Public Schools Food and Nutrition Services with books, corresponding activities, tips, and instructions for starting your own school garden.
  • Elementary Gardening (PDF)
  • Secondary Gardening (PDF)
• Spring: Getting Started in the Garden (PDF)
  See the steps to take to prepare a spring garden.

How-to Guides

• Gardening Angels: A School Start-Up Guide (PDF, 2MB)
  Gardening Angels: A School Start-Up Guide (Word, 90KB)
  A start up guide developed by the Florida Department of Education, Office of Food and Nutrition Management and Office of Healthy Schools. Provides steps to building a sustainable school garden program in Florida.
• Gardening for Grades
  Developed by Florida Agriculture in the Classroom, this Florida-specific gardening guide helps teachers plan, fund, create, and learn with a school garden.
• Gardens for Learning (PDF)
  A comprehensive guidebook that provides a strong foundation to support the growing school garden movement.
• Getting Started: A Guide for Creating School Gardens as Outdoor Classrooms (PDF)
  Getting Started is a 51-page guide with topics including Connecting the garden to the classroom, Understanding nature's cycles and Identifying the responsibilities of the garden coordinator.
• How to Start a School Garden (PDF)
  This comprehensive school garden toolkit illustrates how to plan and build a school garden and get garden activity ideas.
• Nancy's Garden (PDF)
  Montana's First Lady Nancy Schweitzer invites you to spark an interest in math and science with classroom gardening. Let's explore plants, promote healthy eating, and connect kids to the outdoors!
• A Planning Guide for Edible School Gardens (PDF)
  This publication is intended to supply garden leaders with a collection of useful tools and information for planning and implementing a successful school garden project featuring edible plants.

USDA Resources

• Fresh, Healthy, and Safe Foods: Best Practices for Using Produce from School Gardens (PDF)
  The following practices are intended to provide basic food safety guidelines for those involved with school gardens.
• School Garden Q & A (PDF)
  In this memo, USDA recently clarified that school food service funds may be used to purchase seeds, gardening tools, fertilizer, etc for school gardens. Such funds may also be devoted to starting and maintaining gardens on school property and schools are allowed to purchase produce from the gardens, even if the garden is managed and maintained by another school organization.
• USDA’s School Garden Bulletin Board
  Find garden theme ideas and activities, lesson plans, full curricula, activity books, and posters.

For questions & comments regarding education issues: | For questions & comments regarding this Web site: E-mail Webmaster
Accessibility | Copyright Florida Department of Education ©2005 - 2013 | Privacy Statement | Public Records
Free Downloads: Acrobat Reader | Excel Viewer 2003 | Word Viewer 97/2000 | PowerPoint Viewer 2003
Under Florida law, e-mail addresses are public records. If you do not want your e-mail address released in response to a public-records request, do not send electronic mail to this entity. Instead, contact this office by phone or in writing.