Curriculum Connection

This is the easiest part of the project for me! People in my building seek me out because like Dr. Lamb, I KNOW that the Indiana standards cover EVERYTHING! (Random knowledge garnered in preparation for this post: Did you know that fourth graders are supposed to be able to do citations in a research paper?) And translating a garden project to curriculum is ancient. Who among us didn't plant a bean or a kernel of corn in a milk carton filled with dirt?

For elementary age students, the lesson would include the following aspects:
1. Garden planning list for seeds (Unless annuals are used, this is going to be a one-time only project, and it's too effective for that) This would require an information inquiry as well as math to calculate costs.
2. Tool planning list. More information, especially in considering all possible sources, and perhaps some math.
3. Measuring for plant depth, distances. Math and science (at least according to Indiana)
4. The obvious life sciences involved with growing something!
5. A multimedia garden gallery.
6. Garden journal or blog. Thomas Jefferson himself kept the most famous one of these I know, so a teacher could probably manage to squeeze in a couple of social studies standards if s/he wanted.
For a high school environmental science class, converting this to a hydroponics or aquaculture project could be really worthwhile. In many ways, it would just be a higher tech version of the elementary plans, but students themselves should 8-W their own way to designing the project, instead of just being handed the plan by a teacher.

A basic list of Indiana standards integrated into the project would include:
(I'm not specifying a grade level because the core standards remain the same in Indiana at least through middle school>0

Language Arts: Standard 4: Writing process and features Standard 5: Writing applications

Mathematics:
Standard 2: Computation
Standard 5: Measurement

Environmental Science:
Standard 1: Principles of environmental science

Science:
Standard 2: scientific thinking
Standard 3: The living environment
Standard 5: The mathematical world

Source: http://dc.doe.in.gov/Standards/AcademicStandards/PrintLibrary/ILS_Correlations.shtml

And I may be deluding myself, but I think a well-planned gardening project hits every one of Indiana's Information Literacy Standards (Source: Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning). By the way, it can probably cover the mandate for "Good Citizenship Education", too.