Crazy for Butterflies…and their favorite flowers? Looking for fun, caring science lessons?
Growing Green Hearts can help your elementary or preschool classrooms create a butterfly garden, play with STEM, and make science standards fun! The best time to start projects is fall/winter. Excitement builds through the seasons with seeds, design, then seedlings and planting in spring!
EASY. Butterfly gardens could be the most low maintenance, highest fun factor outdoor classroom spaces. Metamorphasis, travel, plant biodiversity, garden design, and human impact are all ways this project ties into social studies, technology, reading, math, science…even art and engineering! As an environmental educator and veteran teacher, Heidi can weave this project into the existing curriculum, meet your school where it’s at including catering to your site with seeds, materials and timeline.
MAGICAL. Since service learning spans many subjects it can really lighten the curriculum while mixing in a whole lot more of character and community building than worksheets could ever offer. Monarch butterflies are magical creature that have peeked curiosity for generations. Watch this magical movie trailer- Flight of the Monarchs. Contact Heidi for more information on bringing the magic to a school near you!
YOU CHOOSE. In-school field trips by Growing Green Hearts make this project easiest for teachers since GGH comes to you with all of the materials and STEM expertise. For the first visit in fall or winter students investigate and collect seeds. Trips to follow include garden design, seedlings, butterfly engineering, and planting. The second option for Butterfly Gardening through Growing Green Hearts is through a series of STEM teacher trainings in which Heidi assists teaching teams in weaving the project into the existing curriculum and standards then coaches the teachers on specifics of STEM, butterflies, and native plantings.
LET’S BUILD IT. Adding a butterfly garden to your elementary school, preschool, or playground can be as easy as 1-2-3 when using the Growing Green Hearts model. Eventually we’d pick a site, write grants for funding, then get the kids working and learning with the hands-on activities. Contact Heidi for more information.
