Kids leading with seeds, plants & nature play!
Plants as Superheroes is a package project for your school, child care center, library, or community group. Growing Green Hearts works will adapt the environmental STEM learning for age group, site, and even intergenerational groups.
Growing Green Hearts is all about play, learning, and loving nature. And a new package of 4 site visits in series with books to match will empower your students in all of those things!
The package is called “Plants as Superheroes: Kids Leading with Seeds, Plants & Nature Play.” Learn more about how Stevenson Elementary students experience plants as superheroes by reading their story here. Thank you Stevenson Elementary and MWMO for partnering with Growing Green Hearts on that great project!
Valuable. Your students will learn through experience that native plants really are superheroes in how they create habitat, filter air, clean water, build soil and beautify! Environmental STEM with Growing Green Hearts empowers students in leadership using systems thinking. We connect people to the water, air, land, and living things right where we live, learn, and play.
How does the program work? Growing Green Hearts visits 4 times over 4-6 months. Author Heidi Ferris will combine children’s books with hands-on environmental STEM with a service learning planting project for your site (pocket prairie, butterfly garden, outdoor classroom, rain garden, etc).
Learn and serve! Three pilot projects over 3 years have shown this service learning project package to build eSTEM experiences for kids, solid science curriculum for staff, and community connections. “Plants as Superheroes” works great as a relay across grade levels for elementary schools. It’s also an intergenerational adventure for your childcare center or community group.
What age? Site visits are adapted to meet the needs of early learners, elementary, upper grades, even an intergenerational group!
When? Fall or Winter are the best times to start. Each of the 4 site visits in the package should be scheduled 4-8 weeks apart based on the needs and types of plants that will be grown.
Where to put the plants? In the spring or summer, plants will go into the ground and come back every year as perennials. Growing Green Hearts can also coach you in adding a new garden to your site or help you find a local library, church, or park in need of native plants. If your site already has a pocket prairie, rain garden, natural playground, or outdoor classroom- that’s great! The package of eSTEM site visits called “Plants as Superheroes” can be combined with those existing features.
Cost? Contact Growing Green Hearts for cost and potential grant opportunities. Click here to send a contact form and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
Staff training? Sure, make the most of your project by combining Growing Green Hearts teacher trainings with your eSTEM site visits for students.
