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Brooklyn Botanic Garden 2003 Annual Report
School Programs
School workshops remain a sought-after educational opportunity for public- and private-school children from kindergarten through 12th grade. The two-hour workshops start with an inquiry-based in-class lesson on a variety of botanical subjects led by BBG staff, continue with a thematically related planting activity in the Education Greenhouses, and end with a tour led by one of BBG's volunteer Garden Guides. In 2003, 5,935 students participated in 237 on-site workshops representing more than 474 hours of learning for schoolchildren. In all, 92 schools were served. A new school workshop, "Water in Nature and in Our Lives," developed with a grant from the Catskills Watershed Corporation, was launched in the fall. Students investigate the adaptations unique to plants in aquatic habitats and construct an understanding of how the plant life in local wetlands supports the diversity of living things that share those ecosystems. As in BBG's other workshops, it takes an inquiry-based learning approach and includes hands-on exploration. Another 1,011 students participated in Exploration Tours led by BBG's volunteer Garden Guides. In addition, more than 53,500 students and their teachers visited the Garden for self-guided tours.
With the guidance of Project GreenReach staff, students filled a large container outdoors with flowering plants to help beautify their school, P.S. 145, in Bushwick.
Project Green Reach (PGR), which teaches botany, horticulture, and environmental studies through the unique combination of teacher training, classroom visits, hands-on planting activities, class trips to the Garden, and community horticulture projects, reached more than 2,500 students in 2003 and offered more than 7,892 hours of instruction. In addition, 118 teachers received more than 790 hours of training through workshops, Garden tours, and observation of PGR staff members teaching in their classrooms. The program serves prekindergarten through eighth-grade students and teachers from Title 1 schools in underserved neighborhoods throughout the borough of Brooklyn.
The Education Department staff, in cooperation with Volunteer Services, provided Garden Guide training and monthly refresher workshops to ensure that all guides have the most current information available.
During the spring school term, the Science Apprenticeship Program gave eight students representing six Brooklyn public high schools the opportunity to work with BBG scientists on the New York Metropolitan Flora project. The students formed two research teams: One team conducted research on the sand seed bank at Rockaway Beaches, Queens. A second team continued the phenology project, which documents the flowering of approximately 20 different plants in the Garden.
The Garden's Teacher Education Programs reached more teachers throughout New York City than ever before. Four hundred forty-four teachers participated in various Garden programs and learned ways to use plants in classrooms and school gardens that will help to enrich their teaching of science, social studies, math, language, literature, and art. Through these programs and workshops, educators were introduced to BBG's extensive plant collections and learned how to use the Garden as a living classroom. In collaboration with the Brooklyn Museum of Art (BMA), BBG educators developed two new workshops, each attended by 28 teachers. "Landscape and Place" focused on Japanese art at BMA and the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden and the Bonsai Collection at BBG. "The Natural and Social Environment in Ancient Egypt" revolved around Egyptian art, culture, and landscape. BBG also participated in a daylong staff-development program co-led by the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Public Library, and the staff of Educational Vision Services, the division of the NYC Department of Education's Special Education Department that serves children citywide who are blind or visually impaired. Eighty teachers attended this program and toured several gardens at BBG. Through a new Eisenhower Title II teacher workshop, BBG educators provided 24 private- and parochial-school teachers with the tools to initiate an investigation into starting plants from seed. The Garden also had 37 teachers in the Title II fall class "Kitchen Botany." In addition, the Garden reached 120 teachers at off-site workshop programs, the Science Council of New York City's staff-development day, and Medgar Evers College's midwinter staff-development day for teachers.
The Education Department continued its partnership with local universities to provide training and field experiments for 19 students from New York University and Kingsboro Community College. Preservice teachers observed informal education programs at the Garden to fulfill requirements toward New York State teacher certification.