{"id":50022,"date":"2015-05-18T14:09:41","date_gmt":"2015-05-18T18:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nybg.org\/plant-talk\/?p=50022"},"modified":"2015-05-18T14:33:51","modified_gmt":"2015-05-18T18:33:51","slug":"what-kids-say-about-plants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/2015\/05\/children-2\/what-kids-say-about-plants\/","title":{"rendered":"What Kids Say About Plants"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joyce H. Newman<\/a> is an environmental journalist and holds a Certificate in Horticulture from The New York Botanical Garden<\/a>. She is the former editor of Consumer Reports GreenerChoices.org<\/a> and a blogger for several home and garden publications.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"Everett<\/a>\n

Every week during the school year, more than 1,200 young children participate in specially designed school programs developed and taught at the Everett Children\u2019s Adventure Garden<\/a> (ECAG). And that number swells to about 1,600 during New York City\u2019s school testing weeks in April when more students stream into ECAG\u2019s gardens and facilities because upper grades are taking tests.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the spring we see a big uptick in the number of school field trips. Our facility can serve over 2,000 students per week, allowing us to deliver programming to more children than any other children\u2019s venue within NYBG,\u201d says Fran Agnone, Coordinator of the Adventure Garden.
\n
\nThe activities that ECAG staff have created may be part of the reason so many school groups keep coming back for more. Many of the children\u2014ranging in age from 4 to 11\u2014have never been to a public garden before, let alone a children\u2019s garden with adventure trails, bridges, wetlands with wildlife, a maze made out of planters, and even a frog pond.<\/p>\n

\"ECAG<\/a>\u201cIt\u2019s frog paradise,\u201d exclaimed Peter, a first grader who visited for the first time last week on a field trip from his school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.<\/p>\n

His class found frogs as well as tadpoles while exploring \u201cPlant Part Paradise,\u201d a small, enclosed garden area with a variety of flowering plants, trees, and shrubs where ECAG instructors teach kids about each part of a plant and the \u201cjob\u201d it does.<\/p>\n

The students find out that frogs are eating the insects that are pollinating the flowers in the garden. So later on, when they visit a \u201cfood web diagram,\u201d they can see how frogs and other animals fit into different food chains.<\/p>\n

These activities are part of the \u201cPlant Parade,” \u201cSeed Go Round,\u201d and \u201cEcology Escapade\u201d\u2014curricula developed by ECAG staff. A key goal for each of these activities is that students learn to act like scientists: to see, smell, touch, draw, take field notes, and, in general, think like scientists. And this goal seems to be within reach, based on comments by the students.<\/p>\n

Here are some thoughts\u2014scientific and otherwise\u2014that the kids have recently expressed:<\/p>\n

What a hyacinth smells like: \u201cIt smells like a rainbow.\u201d<\/p>\n

On planting a kidney bean: \u201cIs a kidney bean like a jelly bean?\u201d<\/p>\n

When given a pot for a plant: \u201cThis is my second plant that I planted in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

When seeing a cattail: \u201cIt looks like a hot dog!\u201d<\/p>\n

Things plants need: \u201cThey need love.”<\/p>\n

On scientists: \u201cI want to be a scientist but I\u2019m not sure which one.”<\/p>\n\"Everett<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From learning about natural life cycles in the Frog Pond to thinking like a botanist, activities in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden inspire young minds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":50027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4133],"tags":[1749,4427,4655,2056,4541,192],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/frog-pond-ECAG.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/ph0lU-d0O","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50022"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50022"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50032,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50022\/revisions\/50032"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}