Teaching and Learning in Your Garden

Creating a garden is the first step towards the ultimate goal -- teaching students and helping them learn through the unique activities of building and maintaining a school garden.  Below are ideas on how to you can incorporate school gardening into your lesson plans and students' learning experiences. For additional inspiration, visit the School Garden Success Stories on this site.

Garden to School Cafe  

The program connects school gardening and school lunch through seasonal harvest events and educational activities.  Garden to School Café will be expending from more than 25 schools to 50 over 2010 due to generous funding from the
Rachael Ray Yum-O! Foundation. 

Garden to School Café is a collaboration of NYC Department of Education, SchoolFood; NYS Department of Agriculture & Markets; and NYC Department of Parks, GreenThumb. 

Over the past two years, schools have used
Garden to Café program to:

•  Expose the entire student, teacher and parent body
    to the school garden.

•  Demonstrate how delicious vegetables are.

•  Increase agriculture literacy and interest in our
    regional food system.

•  Turn the school cafeteria into a learning environment.

•  Build awareness of the larger local food initiatives
    underway at SchoolFood.