Final report for YENC24-215
Project Information
Summer Sprouts garden summer camp will engage 20 rising second and third graders in 5 days of hands-on activities focused on the science of sustainable agriculture, growing and eating healthy food, and the importance of farms to our local community and economy. Sessions will rotate between two school garden sites and culminate with a field trip to the student farm at Ohio University. A series of local agricultural professionals will share their work and lead an activity. Farmer-led lessons will be supported by youth Garden Education Mentors (GEMs), ages 10-18, who will help run camp activities for their younger peers.
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20 participating campers and 6 youth Garden Education Mentors (GEMs) improve knowledge of biology, agriculture, and ecology concepts related to local crops as a result of hands-on gardening projects led by local farmers.
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Youth understand a variety of sustainable agriculture careers available locally by learning from farmers working in diverse contexts including the farmers market, CSAs, OEFFA, Ohio University, and community-based organizations.
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Curriculum developed for summer camp that is farmer-led and youth informed. Outcomes and learnings from this pilot are shared by staff and youth at the 2024 School Gardens of Ohio and Rural Action Green Teachers Conferences.
Cooperators
- (Researcher)
Educational & Outreach Activities
Participation Summary:
Each of the 5 days of Sprouts School Garden Summer camp had a theme such as "pollinators" and "native fruits." In cooperation with participating farmers and youth GEMs (Garden Education Mentors AKA older students), we designed several activities for each day that went along with this theme. The local snacks served also were part of this theme. For example, for our pollinator day, Farmer Tobey led activities related to collecting honey, we made bees wax wraps, we planted local native pollinator plants, and our snacks were made with local honey. The GEMs designed a daily "Garden Gazette" which went home to every camper's family. It included information about the farmers presenting that day including sustainable agriculture methods used, recipes utilizing local produce, as well as hand-drawn matching illustrations that some kids chose to color while waiting at pick-up time. See all the beautiful Garden Gazettes by following this link.
We ended up with 8 farmers wanting to participate, more than expected which was good news! Their wide range of experiences, specialties, and backgrounds made for a very diverse week of learning. On Friday, the last day of camp, we went to the Ohio University Student Farm for some activities and campers' families were invited to join for a tour of their facility. Not just parents, but we also had siblings, grandparents, and friends ask to join as all were very excited to see the farm, our presentation of camp summary, and enjoy a local meal together, complete with edible flowers collected by the campers at the farm. Campers made flower crowns and designed bouquets with a local flower farmer that adorned the tables and it was a special day indeed.
We had intentions of presenting about this camp at 2 fall conferences but neither ended up working out schedule-wise. Instead we did so virtually for one--for an all-state STEM group comprised of educators interested in activity and camp ideas--and also were invited to present a slide show about camp to the Athens County Master Gardners group. At the latter, several people were so excited about this camp concept that they have signed up to volunteer their time to help with this next year's camp week!
- Other
Learning Outcomes
total knowledge
An Ohio University research team, led by Dr. Emily Guesman, conducted several different ways of gathering feedback about camp, some results can be found on this summary. They asked the participating teachers about their experience as well as the farmers, to help steer planning for this next round of camp. Additionally they asked parents several questions for the same purpose. Students were given both pre and post tests--the chart here shows that 10 of 17 kids showed improvement in their total knowledge score.
While it is great to have this official research data to share, I would add that the improvements we saw campers make emotionally was incredible. Although immeasurable and perhaps anecdotal, several campers who were so nervous really "came out of their shells" and made new friends and showed signs of less anxiety, increased levels of comfort with adults and "strangers", and general improved sense of well-being.
Activities and lessons were all developed and led by a combination of CFI staff, farmers, and youth GEMs. This schedule shows the wide variety of hands-on activities and lessons that we offered during the week for a day-by-day view. Activities and lessons included making salve with medicinal herbs, creating pots and planting into them to take home, a pollination game, stepping stones, photosynthesis games, pH testing in the garden, beeswax wraps, cyanotypes, seed ID, flower arranging, native berry harvesting, and a composting game. In addition to these "official" activities, campers had several varying choices in their school gardens of tasks to complete as well as time for exploration and garden journaling. GEMs, farmers, CFI Staff, and teachers all made notes of what worked and what didn't in hopes of improving future activities and ideas.
We hope that this year we can have the resources to put together an official booklet of camp activities to share with other organizations/partners. Because this was a pilot year and thus we expected things to need tweaking in the future, we have yet to put that together but have it on our radar to do so soon. Without having said curriculum established, and each school garden being so different, and not knowing what to expect weather-wise we were kind of starting from scratch with new ideas and testing them during this pilot year rather than having a set plan to refer to like we hope to have in the future.
Project Outcomes
This week of Summer Garden Camp brought together young campers and teachers from 2 different elementary schools in the same school district. While we know showing them each other's school garden spaces was going to be valuable, we also saw many new friendships forming which is important as they are going to be "put together" in a larger school (in a grade or two, depending on their age). This was mentioned by several parents in our end of week survey, one reporting "My son had such a wonderful time. It has been really enjoyable to see the bonds he made with students from East as a MoGo kid and now fostering those when we are at the pool or out at the grocery store."
Additionally, the impact of using older students as GEMs (Garden Education Mentors) was even better than expected. They gained real-life experiences interviewing farmers, writing articles, baking, and being "in charge" of activities and campers themselves. These responsibilities are now listed on one's college application and other younger ones are eager to do more of this again this summer. Lastly, they themselves also learned about sustainable agriculture techniques by working side by side with local farmers and campers and actually getting to participate in the activities themselves.
Perhaps a more user-friendly reporting system? This is my second SARE grant so it was a *bit* easier this round, but in general the format can be cumbersome.