Garden Discovery Kits

Yolo Farm to Fork Garden Discovery Kits were created in response to local teachers’ call for affordable, hands-on materials that allow their students to actively engage all of their senses. First piloted in 2019, these Garden Discovery Kits bridge classroom and garden learning by encouraging a more comprehensive garden-based curriculum for 3rd-6th grade teachers and students which directly addresses California Content and Next Generation Science Standards. 

Garden Discovery Kits are available in both English and Spanish and designed to work with regular classrooms of up to 30 children AND for individual students, especially from Title I schools and English-learner families, who may have to learn online. Yolo Farm to Fork has curated existing high-quality garden-learning lessons for our Seed to Food kits from places like Cornell University, Slow Food USA, The Edible School Yard, Life Lab Science Program, and the California School Garden Network.

Teachers receive a “lesson plan” for each of the three activities included per kit. These lessons are directly tied to CA Content and Next Generation Science Standards for easier integration into existing curriculum. Every student in the classroom will receive...

• All the consumable materials needed to carry out each hands-on Garden Discovery lesson
  
• Step-by-step instructions in English and Spanish
  
• A Garden Discovery Journal to record data and reflections related to the lesson.

COVID-19 has changed many things in our world, but for elementary school students who have been out of school since March 2020, the learning loss is devastating. Knowing what we know about a child’s developmental needs, and about the new protocols of school re-opening, we ask ourselves even more urgently how we can support elementary school teachers in using their schools’ edible gardens as laboratories to improve learning mental health, and nutrition outcomes for their students as they return to a very different school environment than they have ever known. Garden Discovery Kits connect garden-based, experiential learning with all areas of the classroom curriculum and improves the eating habits of our children at a time of learning loss, food insecurity and socio-emotional struggles due to COVID.

To learn more about Garden Discovery Kits, email Jewelia Flores or call (530) 302-5795.