ABSTRACT

In the Highscope Classroom, parents will find a classroom full of nature-based items. With these items, the children will use them to build their imagination using real, raw, and natural materials that will allow them to grow to protect the environment. Students find these natural materials by using recycled materials from their homes, nature-based items found on a walk, or repurposed materials. Children learn best by hands-on activities and exploring materials that have a multi-sensory purpose such as vegetables in a garden from seeds to the table. This grant will allow the children to help create a garden where they are free to be involved through every aspect of growing food from the start. Children will feel a sense of accomplishment learning how food grows and the long-term benefit to the planet and themselves. Children will learn the responsibility of taking care of a living organism and the ecosystem of where it lives. Students will be able to explore the positive and negative effects on the environment through many different experiences and experiments. These experiences will range from digging and building the garden to helping maintain the garden throughout the spring and summertime. Students will be allowed to plant, grow, and provide all necessary steps to keep the garden alive. With the grant proposal, the students will take these learning opportunities to create a generation of environmentally friendly individuals and advocates for the planet.