Curricula for School Gradens

A big part of what our class has been doing this year is looking at how what curriculum material are available to teachers who want to start a school garden. The problem with this project is that there is a lot out there that isn't free, isn't easy to use for teachers who don't know anything about gardening and doesn't list what state or national standards it fulfills.
Thankfully you can find ones that do, so fear not. The curriculum that I spend most of my time reviewing was The Minnesota School Gardens Guide: A Guide to Gardening and Plant Science. I thought this curriculum was a huge step in the right direction for garden curricula. It was well laid-out, easy to understand and listed what Minnesota State Standards each lesson fulfilled. It looks as if any of these lessons would be accessible to teachers, whether they know much about gardening or not.
In our first lesson at Mound's Park Academy, we utilized the lesson "Yo Seeds, Wake Up!" and I thought it was a great way to understand the germination process. We modified it slightly because we were also planting microgreens that day and only had 15 minutes for teaching the lesson, but overall I think it went well.
The last awesome thing about this curriculum is that it's available for free online. I suggest that if your school is starting a garden or you just want some tips on incorporating garden-related material into your lessons, to check it out. You can find it here on the Minnesota Department of Agriculture's website.