Growing Together: Developing Enduring Youth Garden Programs

Learn the basic steps to transform your outdoor space into a vibrant, hands-on learning environment for youth that will last. From the experts at KidsGardening!
Format

Recordings, Readings, 
and Resources

Starting Date

Available Asynchronously

Presenters

Em Shipman
Sarah Pounders
Sarah Lane
Noel Nicholas

Class Length

Self-Paced with
12 weeks of access to the course materials.

Duration

Self-paced:
  • 8 Sessions
  • 8 Resource Collections
  • 8 Optional Assignments

Price

$30 per Enrollee

About the Course

Imagine a garden where students not only witness the magic of nature but actively engage in it. Youth gardens can serve as a dynamic classroom, a thriving community hub, and a catalyst for student engagement. However, the journey from a vision to a flourishing garden requires more than just planting seeds. An effective and sustainable youth garden must be built on a strong foundation that includes a carefully planned garden educational program along with the design of the growing spaces. It demands thoughtful planning, strategic implementation, and ongoing support. 

In this course, we will introduce participants to the basic steps for creating a sustainable youth garden program. The goal is to share the tips we have gleaned over the years on how to plan and implement your garden initiative for success. Creating a garden is a significant investment of time and money for schools and educational organizations. Through the course, we hope to help you match your needs with the resources available to you so that you can maximize the returns on your investment.

Course Objectives

In this 12-week course, you'll gain essential skills and knowledge to establish and sustain a successful school garden program.

  • Design with Purpose: Learn how to create a garden program tailored to your school's unique goals and needs, ensuring it becomes an integral part of your educational approach.
  • Build a Strong Team: Discover strategies to assemble and motivate a passionate team of educators, caregivers, and community volunteers who will champion your garden’s success.
  • Ease of Maintenance: Adopt practical gardening practices that simplify upkeep and maximize your time engaging with students.
  • Explore Funding Opportunities: Delve into diverse funding options to secure long-term support and make your garden dreams a reality.
  • Professional Growth and Networking: Access valuable resources for continued learning and connect with a network of like-minded professionals for ongoing inspiration and support.

Course Structure

This flexible, self-paced course features 8 pre-recorded classes, allowing you to learn at your convenience over 12 weeks.

Each class module also includes a collection of recommended readings and resources and an optional assignment to further your learning. 

At the end of each class, participants are asked to complete an evaluation survey to help us understand your needs and improve the course for future learners. 

At the end of the course participants will be awarded a personalized certificate of completion. 

A community discussion board is available for students to interact with each other and the course instructors for ongoing support. 

Course Lessons

Em Shipman
Executive Director

Em’s vision is grounded in the principle that children are able to realize their full potential when they have access to healthy food and hands-on, outdoor play, and learning opportunities. She is working to ensure the next generations of young people become the tidal wave of social and environmental change leaders needed to alter our trajectory and heal our planet and people.

Em is a nonprofit executive with nearly 20 years of experience leading transformative programs in food systems, agriculture, and education. She holds a B.A. in Public Policy and Anthropology from Hobart and William Smith College and an M.S. in Nonprofit Management from Marlboro College Graduate School.

For as long as Em can remember she has been committed to growing community. She is a passionate advocate for children and the planet and believes that garden-based learning and hands-on, placed-based education benefit both. Em has also worked as a professional gardener and garden designer and spends all of her free time (and then some) digging in the dirt. 

Sarah Pounders 
Senior Education Specialist

Sarah Pounders has been active in the field of youth gardening for over 20 years. Growing up surrounded by plants instilled a deep love of gardens and the desire to share that love with others. While working toward her master’s degree in Horticultural Sciences at Texas A&M University, she had the opportunity to serve as a school garden coordinator and conduct research on the benefits of using school garden programs to teach nutrition.

She went on to work at various botanical gardens, for Cooperative Extension in Virginia and Texas, and since 2005 as an Education Specialist at KidsGardening.org, coordinating numerous children’s gardens, writing curricula and activities for youth of all ages, teaching formal and informal youth education programs, and conducting teacher training sessions on integrating gardens into the classroom. She also enjoys gardening at home with her two children and volunteering with local school garden programs.

Sarah Lane
Grant Program Director

Sarah Lane (she/her) joined KidsGardening in the fall of 2021. As KidsGardening’s Grant Program Director, Sarah manages multiple grant programs, leads garden installations, and helps the organization with its general fundraising efforts.Sarah grew up in Seattle, WA, and graduated from Washington State University with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish Language. In 2016, Sarah moved to Arkansas to serve with FoodCorps at Conway Public Schools, where her passion for working with students in garden spaces sprouted. She earned her Master of Arts in Teaching at Trinity University in San Antonio in 2019 and moved back to Arkansas to be a lead teacher at Ferncliff Nature School, a nature-based preschool in Little Rock, before becoming Arkansas’s first Farm to School and Early Childhood Education Program Coordinator at the Arkansas Department of Agriculture.Sarah lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, on the traditional land of the Osage and Quapaw People. She loves to travel, eat local food, spend time in gardens, and is building her own tiny house!

Noel Nicholas
Educational Content Manager

Noel Nicholas (she/her/hers) started with KidsGardening in the summer of 2022. As Educational Content Manager she helps develop KG’s annual garden-based educational content strategy, co-developing original educational materials, overseeing the editorial calendar and supporting the content marketing plan. She also supports the KidsGardening Community with resource vetting and engagement.Growing up in Honolulu, Hawai‘i, Noel developed a deep appreciation for the natural world while swimming, hiking, gardening and foraging for fruit with family and friends. She holds a BA in Creative Writing from University of Southern California, where she developed a passion for informal education teaching poetry workshops at 32nd Street School/USC Magnet. Prior to joining KidsGardening, Noel worked as a Teaching Artist at Honolulu Museum of Art Spalding House, and as a Museum Educator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, developing and delivering programs for diverse, multi-generational audiences and managing NHMLA’s Storytime Live program. For two years she ran a school garden program at Third Street Elementary in Hancock Park for TK through 5th grade students. She feels deep gratitude for having spent her life living on the ancestral homelands of the Kānaka Maoli and the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples in the Kingdom of Hawai‘i and Tovaangar.
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