Webinar: Bilingual Family Engagement

This webinar is hosted by the School Garden Support Organization Network. Having a strong family support base is key to the longevity of a garden program. Join us in learning how Wasatch Community Gardens in Utah involve their language-rich community! Presenters will include: - Kimberly Yapias, School and Family Garden Manager at Wasatch Community Gardens in Salt Lake City, UT - Emily Büchi, Youth and School Program Director at Wasatch Community Gardens in Salt Lake City, UT

In-person: Intercurricular Connections in the Garden Workshop

This workshop is hosted by Life Lab at Life Lab's Garden Classroom on the UC Santa Cruz Campus. Learn to use a school garden to provide a meaningful context in which students can apply their emerging skills in math and English language arts. Using lessons from The Growing Classroom activity guide, participants in this workshop will experience and discuss garden activities. Whether they are graphing the temperature of their compost pile over time; reading a recipe to make fresh salsa; writing a story from the perspective of an ant; or presenting to a buddy class on the animals that visited their sunflower patch, the opportunities for children to practice traditional academic subjects in the garden are limitless!

Great SE Pollinator Census 2024

The Great Southeast Pollinator Census is a citizen science project initiated by the University of Georgia. It aims to engage people across Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Florida in observing and counting pollinators. Wimberly's Roots and the Wimberly Center for Community Development will participate in the census this year and hope to make this a community wide celebration of Pollinators and their purpose. Any and all suggestions to make this event a success are appreciated!

Webinar: Cooking With Heat in the School Garden

This webinar series is presented by Life Lab in partnership with KidsGardening. Join us for a webinar exploring the exciting world of nutrition right from your school garden! Register now. Focus areas will include: More Outdoor Cooking Skills: Discover essential knife skills and other cooking techniques that are safe and suitable for teaching outdoors. We'll cover basic food preparation, including cooking with heat, and outdoor culinary experiences for students. Understanding Young Palates: Gain insights into how to introduce young children to diverse and nutritious foods. Discover strategies to encourage nourishing eating habits in the early years. Deconstructing Food Shaming: We'll address the important issue of food shaming, discussing its impact on young minds and ways to foster a positive and accepting relationship with food. ____________ This webinar is part of a yearlong "In the Growing Classroom" webinar series presented by Life Lab that blends the marvels of nature, the magic of cross-curricular connections, and the joy of culinary exploration! This 6-part series invites you to explore effective outdoor classroom management, integrating Next Generation Science Standards and the C3 Framework for Social Studies into garden education and the culinary arts through traditional and heat-free methods. Learn More and Register for Any Webinar in this Series

In-Person: Engineering in the Garden Workshop

This workshop is held in person at Life Lab's Garden Classroom on the UC Santa Cruz Campus. Learn to facilitate engineering experiences for students in the garden! Participants will engage in a 3rd-5th grade unit designed for Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), in which students design and build trellises for peas in the school garden. We will make observations; design, build and test prototypes; and then build full-size trellises to grow peas. By unpacking this unit, we will learn how to facilitate engineering experiences that address real problems or needs in school gardens. You will leave with resources to lead this unit, and also a framework for designing your own engineering in the garden unit.

Santa Cruz Area School Food and Garden Tour

This event is hosted by Life Lab. The Santa Cruz area is home to robust, long standing school food and garden programs. Join us to visit resilient school gardens and innovative scratch cooking school meal programs that are exemplary of the programming that has been running for decades.