|
Our mission with the Schoolyard Nature
Network is to establish a foundation of financial, in-kind and training
resources to sustain school garden programs.
The menu on the left is
incomplete. As we find time from running our own school garden
program, we are working on getting the process down in writing to share
with other school garden developers. Our goal is not to promote
school gardens, that is happening without our help. Our goal is
not even to tell you how to start a school garden. It's easy to
start a school garden.
The challenge is to launch a school garden
program that will survive past the first or second
year. The bigger challenge is to establish a program that will
survive after the founder(s) move on. (Most school garden
programs fail when the person with the passion is no longer involved.)
The immediate goal of the Schoolyard Nature
Network is
to strengthen the school garden
movement, not by duplicating Granny's Garden
School, but by serving as a guide for others
to learn from our experience.
We
focus on the practical everyday fundamentals of
creating and maintaining the physical site, integrating educational
standards, and securing funding and supplies.
Our more important
long-term goal is to work with the "Garden Industry" and others to
develop a funding stream to provide funding for class garden
coordinators - as that is the key to sustaining a garden program.
The
Schoolyard Nature Network is the natural
outgrowth of
the requests for information and training
from others
coming to tour and observe our methods.
Granny's Garden School's staff and
volunteers have a unique knowledge base
acquired during our ten years of working
with more than 1,650 students each week in a public school environment. Our
standards based
lesson guides and garden/classroom schedule delivered by our
staff of class garden coordinators are the key to our success with
having the
program
incorporated into the school day.
|
