This reference sheet provides many links for teachers and schools in Oregon to increase their outdoor learning opportunities, become a certified Green School, and add environmental curriculum into their lessons.
Funding opportunities, field trips, and partner organizations are also identified in the resource.
Teaching Tips
Positives
There are links to available grants to help schools fund their outdoor project.
There are suggestions for outdoor field trips in many different regions of Oregon.
Additional Prerequisites
The Slow Food USA Youth Farm Stands Toolkit and SOLVE (natural area environmental volunteerism) links are broken.
Certain forms need to be filled out when in the planning phase and then upon completion of the project.
Differentiation
Guidance or SEL classes can carry out this project after discussing the impact that green spaces have on mental health, focus, school performance, etc.
Family and consumer science classes can use this project to create an edible garden that can be utilized in cooking portions of the class. These classes can also discuss how gardening and green spaces can be beneficial to their school and their environment.
Science classes can use this project to supplement a unit on the carbon cycle and the impact human activity has on the environment. These classes can discuss gardens and green spaces as a climate solution, and work as a class to find the best solution for their school.
Schools further away from the locations suggested for field trips can see if any of these places would offer a virtual field trip for their students, or can have their students go on a web quest to find out more about those locations.
Civics classes can discuss how to form a committee to carry out this project in their school and can go about creating and filling this committee.
Civics classes can be separated into groups and work to create a proposal for the best way to carry out this project in their school.
Younger students can contribute to the project by planting, weeding, and watering gardens and grounds. They can also talk about how planting can be helpful for the environment.
Scientist Notes
This resource on gardening is well sourced and cited. All information is linked to the appropriate citation and is backed by scientific evidence. This resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
MS-ESS3-3 Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.
MS-ESS3-4 Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth's systems.
4-ESS3-1 Obtain and combine information to describe that energy and fuels are derived from natural resources and that their uses affect the environment.
5-ESS3-1 Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth’s resources and environment.
HS-ESS3-1 Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity.
HS-ESS3-2 Evaluate competing design solutions for developing, managing, and utilizing energy and mineral resources based on cost-benefit ratios.
HS-ESS3-3 Create a computational simulation to illustrate the relationships among management of natural resources, the sustainability of human populations, and biodiversity.
HS-ESS3-4 Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces impacts of human activities on natural systems.
ETS1: Engineering Design
K-2-ETS1-1 Ask questions, make observations, and gather information about a situation people want to change to define a simple problem that can be solved through the development of a new or improved object or tool.
3-5-ETS1-2 Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Civics
D2.Civ.11.K-2 Explain how people can work together to make decisions in the classroom.
D2.Civ.11.3-5 Compare procedures for making decisions in a variety of settings, including classroom, school, government, and/or society.
Dimension 2: Geography
D2.Geo.7.6-8 Explain how changes in transportation and communication technology influence the spatial connections among human settlements and affect the diffusion of ideas and cultural practices.
D2.Geo.9.6-8 Evaluate the influences of long-term human-induced environmental change on spatial patterns of conflict and cooperation.
D2.Geo.4.K-2 Explain how weather, climate, and other environmental characteristics affect people's lives in a place or region.
D2.Geo.6.9-12 Evaluate the impact of human settlement activities on the environmental and cultural characteristics of specific places and regions.
D2.Geo.9.9-12 Evaluate the influence of long-term climate variability on human migration and settlement patterns, resource use, and land uses at local-to-global scales.
