School Garden Educational Opportunities

A glance at opportunities to learn more about school gardening, including professional development workshops and educator certification centers throughout Michigan, surrounding states and elsewhere in the US.

By: Rachel Kelly, MSUCenter for Regional Food Systems

 

Below is a list of some upcoming school garden educational opportunities, professional development workshops and educator certification centers throughout Michigan, in surrounding states and elsewhere in the US.

  

In August, look for a Good Food Bite featuring information about school garden grant opportunities!

 

Michigan Organic Food and Farm Alliance (MOFFA) has a variety of upcoming organic farming workshops and educational opportunities throughout Michigan. For more details, see http://www.moffa.net/educational-opportunities.html  and for further details about each event, click on the event links.

 

North American Association for Environmental Education Natural Start Alliance offers ongoing professional development opportunities for educators to learn how to create experiences for young children to better explore and appreciate the natural world and environment. For more information, visit http://naturalstart.org/resources/professional-development

 

Southeast Michigan Stewardship Coalition offers ongoing professional development courses for educators who want to teach environmental values and stewardship in the classroom. See their website at http://semiscoalition.org/professional-development/

 

Michigan Online Educator Certification, run by the Michigan Department of Education, is a web-based system that educators can use to obtain certificates. https://mdoe.state.mi.us/MOECS/ProfessionalLearning/Reports/CatalogSearchSystem

 

Life Lab offers garden-based learning workshops throughout the US, plus resources and professional development opportunities for educators. Visit http://www.lifelab.org/for-educators/professional-development/

National School Garden Network Best Practices Webinar series. This online webinar series covers best practices, case studies, tools and resources on key topics including program sustainability, maintaining multiple school gardens, identifying and measuring impact of school gardens, and school garden networks. Upcoming webinars will be held on September 12, 2017 at 1pm PST and October 10, 2017 at 1pm PST. To register and learn more about the series, follow link: https://sites.google.com/site/nationalschoolgardennetwork/networking 

 

Community Groundworks has workshops, courses, curricula, guides and manuals to help connect youth (and adults) to local food and the environment through gardening, farming, healthful eating and natural resource preservation. For more details, visit: http://www.communitygroundworks.org/resources/workshops-and-courses

 

Chicago Botanic Garden offers teacher programs, custom professional development workshops, free classroom resource kits for educators. Upcoming programs include “Horticultural Therapy for Educators,” August 8-9, and “Educator Overnight: Nature at Night,” August 11-12. To learn more, visit: https://www.chicagobotanic.org/education/teacher_programs

 

This listing was curated by MSU Extension Educator Kristine Hahn for the July 2017 Michigan School Garden Newsletter. If you are interested getting the Michigan School Garden Newsletter, contact Kristine at hahnk@anr.msu.edu

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