CitySprouts’ Early Start in Science Takes Root
Public schools are an obvious partner for CitySprouts hands-on science education program: 90% of children in this country spend at least 6 hours of their day at school. For 22 years, CitySprouts has made sure that at least some of those school hours are spent learning outside. Our in-school program in Boston and Cambridge elementary schools creates dedicated time in the school day for city children to build a lifelong connection to the natural world. Such a close partnership with public schools also requires a deep commitment to the school and district’s learning goals. Three years ago, CitySprouts began to roll out a series of learning modules called Early Start in Science.
An Early Start in Science lesson more often than not begins in the garden. In the fall module for 3rd grade, for instance, students search the garden for all kinds of seeds– from sunflowers and carrot tops to milkweed and acorns. The Garden Educator asks the students questions to encourage them to think about how a plant begins its life cycle, and what a seed needs in order to grow. “What do you notice these seeds have in common?” the Garden Educator may ask. “Why do you think plants make seeds?” Such questions are intended to get students thinking and wondering rather than “getting the right answer.” These kinds of questions help them begin to see connections between different living things. They encourage young students to articulate what they are thinking. Responding to focused questions such as these encourages observation, building the habit of looking for evidence (a key science practice).
“There’s nothing new or radical about garden-based learning,” says Executive Director Jane Hirschi. “CitySprouts is part of a long and rich tradition of outdoor education. What’s unusual about our program is how closely our garden-based lessons map to the science curriculum scope and sequence that teachers follow in the classroom. Our Early Start in Science modules are designed around the same science concepts in the schools’ curriculum, for each grade.” She added, “Our modules also have to align with the seasons, of course, because they are taught in the garden.”
The CitySprouts Garden Educator is at their partner school one day a week through the entire school year. CitySprouts’ team of seven Garden Educators work closely with classroom teachers and (if the school has one) the school’s science specialist. The Garden Educator-teacher collaboration is a core element of the Early Start in Science model in that it extends and deepens a school’s science education program rather than replacing it. Garden Educators help to connect students’ science learning outdoors with the learning goals for which teachers are responsible. “I see the CitySprouts Garden Educators as colleagues who I can plan with and work with and trust,” said Cambridge kindergarten teacher Neil Klinman. Teachers know they can count on a thriving schoolyard learning garden when they return to school in September and a new garden planted each spring.
While science and technology breakthroughs have dominated the 21st century, science education in US public education has actually decreased, most notably for schools in economically disadvantaged communities. “There’s a stratification going on when we allow some children in our society to learn much more about science and social studies than we enable other children in our society to learn,” emphasizes Dr. Nell Duke, a nationally recognized literacy researcher.
Karen Worth is a science educator and curriculum developer; she also sits on CitySprouts board of directors. “When children learn in the garden,” said Karen, “they develop a whole set of knowledge and skills that are critical to their understanding of the world around them. CitySprouts’ Early Start in Science units… make a much closer link between what children do in the garden and what they’re doing in the classroom in their more formal science program…it makes the work children do outdoors feel more integrated and more part of their full school day.”
Cambridge preschool teacher Janet Forte described the role CitySprouts has played over the year in her classroom. “CitySprouts has been such an essential part of my making science accessible in my classroom. It provides wonderful opportunities for young children to learn about the world around them, to get their hands dirty, to dig, to explore and use all of their senses….we’re in an urban community where not everyone has access to gardens or even a yard. [The garden] is such a wonderful way to make science learning so developmentally appropriate for these young 3 and 4 year olds.”
CitySprouts ESIS curriculum has been recognized by the state as a model to inspire a next generation of science students. Erin Hashimoto-Martell, Director of STEM Education for DESE said: “Our ongoing support of CitySprouts exemplifies how community organizations can meaningfully partner with schools that further [DESE’s] mission. It demonstrates how students can thrive when learning extends beyond the physical classroom walls and beyond the typical school day hours. There, students will have different questions, different experiences, and different ways to see themselves…School gardens grow more than vegetables. They grow connection to the Earth, connection to community, and to social-emotional and physical health.”
For more information about CitySprouts Early Start in Science Curriculum, check out our Programs page here.