LEARNER’S ALMANAC Spring 2012 A handy reference for how your gift has grown this season
Thanks to volunteers, community partners, and donors like you, over 45,000 students and 2,700 educators have access to vibrant outdoor learning environments. We currently support 81 REAL school gardens that are growing successful students across North Texas. Read on to see how your support is helping to grow strong learners.
THE BOUNTY OF THE SEASON
1,574 community volunteers helped
GARDEN SPOTLIGHT: SAGAMORE HILL E.S. Thanks to the hard work of over 100
build and install 7 new learning
Mercedes Benz Financial Services
gardens this school year
team members, Sagamore Hill
41 Wells Fargo employees worked alongside students to enhance learning gardens at 2 elementary schools 24 Alcon employees created new
Elementary School’s learning garden came to life on April 4. Mercedes Benz associates joined the school community to design and bring to life a unique outdoor learning environment. In addition
garden features at North Hi Mount
to more common learning
Elementary School as part of their
features, the space they
global Community Partnership Day
created includes vibrant
30 partner schools are participating in Smart Potatoes, a service-learning initiative focused around the experience of growing healthy food
art work and our first stone arroyo, which will utilize the slope of the land to collect rainwater.
STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: STUDENTS DIG LEARNING THROUGH SMART POTATOES PROGRAM Through the experience of growing potatoes in their learning gardens and then donating them to local food pantries, Smart Potatoes provides students with engaging lessons in math, science, and social studies while helping them address hunger in their communities. A collaboration between REAL School Gardens and the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, this year’s Smart Potatoes initiative includes 30 participating partner schools. Teachers tell us that Smart Potatoes is "a learning experience that was priceless and very rewarding," and one astute student writes that "I learned that it feels good to help somebody out every once in a while.” Last year 14 schools in Tarrant County participated in Smart Potatoes and donated over 430 pounds of potatoes to local food pantries. We are looking forward to an even bigger harvest of spuds and service-oriented students this June.
EDUCATOR SPOTLIGHT: GRAND PRAIRIE TEACHE RS ENRICH EDUCATION IN THE GARDEN Twenty-seven teachers and administrators from six Grand Prairie schools dug into the learning garden at Seguin Elementary School to expand their teaching practice and help foster a school culture of teaching outdoors. Educators learned concrete examples of cross-curricular, standards-based lesson plans. Learning gardens provide rich opportunities for learning new skills as well as reinforcing past lessons—and math and science are only the beginning. Teachers practiced journaling techniques in the garden and learned how to use seed Stay in the Loop! packets as nonfiction elements of text. One educator told us that this training was “an eye opener for me Up-to-date information and news and now I can open the eyes of my about our program and partner students.” Her sentiments were schools, and resources available for Grand Prairie ISD teachers reiterated by a principal of one of schools and community partners learned to apply lessons taught our partner schools who said, indoors to the learning garden for facebook.com/REALSchoolGardens “Every principal should go through hands-on student engagement. this training.”
“[This training] was a rejuvenation for me to see teachers and principals engaged in authentic learning.” – Grand Prairie Educator
Your gifts help us grow successful students!
COMMUNITY PARTNER SPOTLIGHT: SUPPORT FOR STEM IN THE SCHOOLY ARD The STEM in the Schoolyard event put a spotlight on how learning gardens provide hands-on, cross-curricular STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education. Thanks to Rich Templeton, CEO of Texas Instruments and this year’s community campaign chair for United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, the event brought together over 40 Dallas business executives for a morning of hands-on STEM activities. Fifth graders at Gabe P. Allen Charter School built solar ovens to bake potatoes, used catapults to launch small objects, assembled calculators powered by the chemical energy in potatoes, and connected circuits to show the transfer of energy with a flashing energy ball designed by TI engineers. REAL School Gardens is proud to partner with Texas Instruments, United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, and other change-makers in Dallas to improve education and nurture a new generation of innovators.
Rich Templeton, CEO of Texas Instruments, explains the science and engineering behind how catapults work.
DFW executives came together to showcase corporate cooperation for education during the STEM in the Schoolyard event.
REAL School Gardens ● 503 Bryan Ave. Fort Worth, TX 76104 ● 817-348-8102 ● www.realschoolgardens.org ● www.facebook.com/REALSchoolGardens