Curriculum

The curriculum section provides over one hundred garden-based lessons to create, expand, and sustain garden-based learning experiences. It offers practical ideas and resources for every level of garden-based learning from sprouting seeds to understanding the food system.

This curriculum section was compiled by the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Garden-Based Learning Workgroup. The content for this section was borrowed, with permission, from various resources. It was our goal to use existing resources as not to “recreate the wheel” and to give a broad example of the garden-based learning resources that are currently in print.

The section is divided into 12 theme areas with applications for primary and upper grade level students:

• Getting to Know Your Garden:Garden Basics — Bed & box Preparation, Tools & Equipment
• Digging In: Soil, Weather, and Seasons
• Seeds and Planting: Propagation, Germination, Transplanting
• The Growing Plant: Botany, Reproduction, Pollination, and Life ycles
• Garden Habitat: Critters, Beneficial Insects and Pest Control
• Garden Stewardship: Watering, Weeding, Erosion, and Crop Maintenance
• Harvest: Seed Saving, Food Storage and Processing
• Composting: Recycling, Organic Gardening, and Soil Amendment
• From Farm to Table: Food Systems at Work
• Gifts From the Earth: Plant Based Crafts
• Cooking and Eating for Healthy Living: Eat Well for Nutrition
• Food Around the World: Origins, History, and Cultural Uses of Foods

Resources specifically for middle school grades:
JMG Level Two
Operation Thistle: Seeds of Despair: Plant Growth & Development

Garden Mosaics

Investigations in Horticulture a middle school curriculum by the California Association of Nurseries and Garden Centers designed to help students understand the nutritional, aesthetic, environmental, and therapeutic values of horticulture. Download pdf.