HomeYouth LessonsGardening in Our Warming World: Youth Grow!Unit One – What’s My Story?Know & Show

Know & Show

Overview

Learning about Gardening
Children’s Garden, CCE Suffolk County Farm

Children create “Know and Show” garden hats that illustrate what they know about climate change and gardening.

Skill Level

Beginning

Learner Outcomes, Youth will:
  • Demonstrate their personal relationship with the earth.
  • Illustrate what they know about climate change and gardening.
Education Standards
  • NS.K-4.3 Life Science: The characteristics of organisms
  • NS.5-8.3 Life Science: Ecosystems
  • NS.5-8.6 Personal and Social Perspectives: Environments
Success Indicators

Illustrate what they know about climate change and the world around them.

Life Skills

Communications, learning to learn

Time Needed

40 minutes

Materials List: 2‐inch clear tape, newspaper, gardening magazines and photos of plants (healthy and not healthy) miscellaneous art supplies (markers, yarn, glitter, pipe cleaner, tissue paper, crafts supplies on hand. Try to use recycled materials wherever possible).

Space

Desks or tabletops for using craft supplies to build a sombrero

Suggested Group Size

10 or more

Acknowledgements

Adapted from the Cornell Garden-Based Learning Seeds of Change by Dina El-Mogazi, and the International Junior Master Gardener Program, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension.

Introduction

Opening Questions
  • What have you noticed about changes in the weather lately?
  • Is it always the same every day in each season? Too hot? Cold? Rainy?
  • What do you know about Climate Change?

Background Information

Before the Activity: Gather and set up crafts supplies needed for the activity. Make a hat to model, showing what you know about plants in the garden, their needs and how climate change may affect a healthy garden.

Let’s Do It!

Make the Hat                      
  • Place the middle of two large, square sheets of newspaper on the top of a student’s head.
  • Lay the rest of the paper flat against the student’s head.
  • Tape around the newspaper starting right over the ear and continue wrapping until the tape goes all the way around the student’s head.
  • Curl up the edges of the newspaper to form the brim of the hat.
Decorate the Hat
  • Ask the opening questions, and others listed in a way that the children will understand: What do plants need to be healthy? What have you noticed about changes in the weather lately? How do you see plants in the garden reacting to these changes in weather patterns? (ex: what happens with too much or too little rain?)
  • Ask children to think about what they know about a healthy garden and/or the effects of climate change towards garden plants.
  • Encourage them to use what they know to decorate their hats, with different art supplies, pictures of plants, flowers and vegetables cut from magazines,
  • Encourage them to be creative, but do not offer too many suggestions or prompting (unless needed for adaptive learning), as the goal is to see what they know about the topic.
  • They may demonstrate the concept of climate change in a simple way, such as by drawing a very hot sun and plants drying up or drawing how planting trees makes the planet a beautiful, green place.

Talk It Over

Share/Reflect
  • When everyone’s finished their hats, encourage them to show their creation to the group and talk about what each decoration or item means.
  • As they do this, jot down the numbers and range of responses.
  • For example, when asked what plants need, children may show water drops, and a sun. Note those as examples of two different needs.
  • Once everyone has presented their hats to the group, and you have finished writing down their range of responses, invite the children to wear their hats when they go out into the garden.
Apply

Take the children out to the garden, have them observe plants closely. Ask:

  • What do you see in the garden today? Healthy plants? Any plants that look stressed due to weather we have had lately?
  • What can we do in the garden to keep plants healthy when changes in weather may affect them?

Variations

  • Explain to them that these hats are called ‘sombreros’. Sombrero is a Spanish word which means ‘shade’. These hats create shade and are a great way to get protection from the hot summer sun!
  • Expand the discussion on how some plants need sun and some need shade.
  • Keep a box where the hats can be kept, so children can wear them in the garden on sunny days!

References

Adapted from Cornell Garden-Based Learning Seeds of Change, by Dina El-Mogazi, and International Junior Master Gardener Program, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension.

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