Children's Gardening Tools for Environmental Education
The cost of gardening tools is $11, including shipping and <a target="new" href="http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm" onclick="g_openWindow('http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm', 300, 800, 'fulfillwindow');return false;">fulfillment</a>.
Sherman Elementary School, in San Francisco, serves 400 students in kindergarten through 5th grade. Our students come primarily from Chinatown and downtown, among the densest areas of the city, with little access to parks and greenery. Sherman School has embarked on a Green Schoolyard project to convert some of our asphalt play yards into growing spaces. There is tremendous excitement on the part of students, teachers and parents about the project.
The first stage of this project will be the installation, in January and February of 2006, of six large planter boxes that will be used by classrooms for environmental education and the science curriculum dealing with life cycles and plant growth. Students will transplant seedlings started indoors, or they will plant seeds directly into the boxes.
We need funding for small hand tools, gloves, and wheeled carts for tool storage. We have tried to find the cheapest materials that will work for our project.
My role in the project is as the staff contact person for the Green Schoolyard project. I am the school librarian, and in addition, I have training in horticulture and landscape architecture. I am active in Sherman's Green Schoolyard Project and am deeply committed to developing environmental awareness and a love of nature in children.
Elementary students have an inborn attraction to the natural world and in growing things. The outdoor planter boxes and tools will allow the students much closer contact with nature and the opportunity to nurture and observe plant growth in a natural outdoor setting. The majority of classrooms will be using the new planter boxes. Therefore the tools will directly benefit between 350 and 400 students in our school. The small trowels, digging tools, gloves, and tool storage are essential to the success of the project.
Most of our students have few opportunities to have direct experiences with nature. This grant will enable them to connect in a meaningful way to the rhythms of the seasons and the plant and animal life that exists even in the middle of a large city.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Watsky and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.