Ready to sign up? Teachers at our partner schools can register for this course through BVSD MyPassport. Click on the button below and search for Course #26359.
Great news! Surveys showed that many teachers at our partner schools hunger for more training and connection to one another. Ask and you shall receive. ✨ We were awarded a grant through Boulder County Sustainable Food and Ag to offer BVSD teachers 7.5-hours of training for Salary Credit or Instructional Seat Time with a $150 stipend. Interested? Read on!
Getting the Most from Your Garden to Table Classroom
Dates/Format:
This training will take place in three parts:
- Part one: March 1st, 4:00-6:00pm—at the BVSD Greenhouse, 6600 Arapaho.
- Part two: March 8, 4-5:30pm—via zoom. This session will be concurrent with our similar parent training, so you’ll be joined by parent garden leads.
- Part three: Independent Asynchronous Planning Time: 2.5 hours of this training are allotted for your independent planning time to create a unit or lesson of your own that utilizes your school garden. This will take place as you like between March 8th and April 5th, with an opportunity to share with colleagues on April 5th.
- Part four: April 5th, 4-5:30pm—outdoors. at BCSIS/High Peaks Elementary (where two Garden to Table school gardens will be great demonstration spaces.)
Why a parent training? Why a teacher training?
Garden to Table empowers school communities with gardens and curriculum to engage all students in experiential outdoor education. We are half of a partnership. The school (parents and teachers) are the other half. Without you, the gardens would flounder, so we want to be sure you feel well equipped to fill and grow your role as a teacher in the garden. This will be a chance to meet teachers at other schools and learn answers to questions you’ve been asking about your garden as a classroom or about gardening generally.
We’d love your support getting the word out to parents about our parallel training in which they can receive a $100 stipend. If both parents and teachers receive more training and support we know each school garden can better fulfill its potential in 2022 and beyond. Learn more about the parent training here.
What will the training cover?
Three Garden to Table staff will guide you to make best use of your school garden as a classroom:
Mandi Leigh, our Garden and Curriculum Coordinator at 6 schools and PhD Candidate in Education Reform, will share strategies for group management in experiential outdoor classrooms. How can we break hierarchical routine and reposition the garden as the teacher and the students as the experts? Mandi will discuss ways of being in the garden with children that are trauma-informed, inquiry-based, and that foster relationship with planet. She’ll help us learn to analyze curriculum through for lenses (learner, teacher, subject matter, and milieu) in order to understand what makes some classes in the garden really flow for everyone.
Lindsey LeCuyer, our Program Director, will help participants learn how to make the most of the Garden to Table website and give an overview of resources. She’ll give updates on the new curriculum we’re developing to meet new science standards and answer any questions about scheduling lessons and how we go about choosing date ranges for given lessons. She’ll also share volunteer recruitment strategies!
Laurel Smith, our Garden Director, will explain and demonstrate our best practices for building healthy soil and generating bountiful vegetable harvests. We’ll discuss what makes our approach to gardening “sustainable” and ecologically-savvy. Participants will learn where and from whom these practices originated, and ideas on how to support students from all backgrounds to enjoy growing food and learning in the garden.
Questions? Please let us know. We’ll do our best to get back in touch promptly. Email info@gardentotable.org
Ready to sign up? Teachers at our partner schools can register for this course through BVSD MyPassport. Click on the button below and search for Course #26359.