Who has taught kids seed saving+ growing for seed? I have noticed a LOT of curriculum around growing food, but what’s published online generally stops as soon as the crop is ready for eating.
I think we should change that! I’m sure there are plenty of you out there who have been teaching formally or informally, and maybe all we need to do is share and organize ideas.
I’m committed to go teach 5th graders for a week in April. I’m really worried they are so cute but I don’t know about kids. We don’t have seeds to process anymore, and nothing to collect in the garden, but do have plenty of seeds to do activities with. Ideas?
These are the particular kids I’ll be hanging out with.
As part of my job, I sometimes do some workshop in schools. I’ve noticed that whatever you say, if you seem passionate about what you do, they will be too.
Perhaps do some mandalas with colored bean and corn seeds would be a good activity to keep their hands busy while you educate them with words about the diversity of our food plants (children have a limited listening concentration time of around 30 minutes).
This will be a good way of talking subjects such as the link between ethnic diversity / seed diversity / artistic cultures diversity.
This year we want to add this activity for the “Big Kids” who come to our annual GTS europe meeting in croatia. Sometimes it’s good to let ourselves go in more artistic directions with our plants…learn about each other, our differences…
Are you wanting to hit particular curriculum goals or just teach about growing/seed saving? For an April class I would be wanting to go in the direction of planting something with them.
Maybe a quick germinating flower. Then they would have a little plant to give in time for Mother’s Day. And it’s a flower they can have forever because they can save the seeds each year and replant them in the spring.
Assuming that my funding doesn’t get cut, I will have students developing resources this summer to fill that gap.
In the meantime, I’ve got rapini seed at the stage where the birds have just started pecking, and I’ve got some late-maturing chiles coming off this week (seed is destined for next year’s GTS submission). Would you like a care package?
I totally agree with you that closing the loop with seed production/adaptation gardening is the next step for school gardening. And in many cases, it would enable a more successful first step…
If possible, I would have several activities/resources with different levels of gratification: a finished product by the end of the session (something to take home or display in the school), something medium term (quick growing crops to plant out and some harvest within a few weeks), longer term (planting for seeds to process at the end of the season) all the way to conceptualise longer breeding projects (even if it’s just sharing pictures/having a informal chat while sorting out seeds).
If you are going to go back, I would definitely get them involved in medium/long term projects, even if it’s only “dream” gardening. They probably have a million ideas of what they would want to work on. You might be able to guide them to make those “dreams” reality.
Sorting out colourful seeds is always a lovely activity. I really like Stephane’s Mandala/artwork idea. It’s also very easy to adapt.
A match up game with the seeds (or pictures) and pictures of the flower/veg/herb. Introduce some seeds that don’t look that varied but have colourful veg/interesting leaf shapes. Plants that totally transform when they go to seed are also very interesting (radish, lettuce, biennials etc).
If they have a school garden or they can take seeds home, preparing seeds to plant would be nice (especially if they can choose their own mix). Special consideration for a school garden would be crops that work either side of the summer break (some produce before and some that can get on with total neglect, ready to harvest in the autumn).
Good luck Julia, it’s a fantastic project!
Thank you all so much for sharing these ideas and resources. Below are a few resources Melissa DeSa shared from Working Food. I can’t work on anything at the moment as I’m working on a prison garden adaptation of the course.
I wonder if we could create an open source curriculum document, mainly seed saving with extra activities or lessons related to adaptation, some microbes mixed in…
And I just wrote a grant with the Seed Library Network to develop seed saving materials especially for school gardens, so hopefully more resources at some point.
For now any other documents/curriculum/ideas welcomed!
they are so cute but I don’t know about kids. We don’t have seeds to process anymore, and nothing to collect in the garden, but do have plenty of seeds to do activities with. Ideas?
