Gardening program educates
youth
By Anna Herkamp
Summer
Reporter
The Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service
is offering a new program designed to educate youth about the fun and
usefulness of gardening.
The Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service
is the community out-reach program created when Purdue was contrived
as a land grant institution.
Programs like these give Purdue the opportunity
to give back to the community through education, said Kathryn Orvis,
Indiana Junior Master Gardeners program coordinator and assistant professor
of horticulture and landscape architecture.
The program is arranged very similar to the 'adult'
Master Gardeners program in what is required to become certified and
move from each of the program's levels.
Junior Master Gardeners is actually a 4H program
started at Texas A&M University. Like other 4H programs, there are
traditional projects, which can be done for fairs, but the main difference
is that Junior Master Gardeners can be used as a school enrichment activity
as well, Orvis said.
The first group in Indiana to become certified
in this program is from Gibson County and is led by Pam Jones who uses
Junior Master Gardeners as the science curriculum for the students she
home schools.
Jones is the leader of a group, which consists
of seven students. The group has been together since the beginning of
March.
Jones first became aware of the program in a pamphlet
for a gardening association for kids, so I decided to do it a s home
schools supplement, she said.
"I decided to start using it as the science curriculum.
It's so neat because there is so much to do that's hands-on. It's not
like having workbooks or that sort of thing," she said
In addition to the hands-on work students experience,
the outcome of this type of learning seems better as well. "They retain
it a lot better. They love the community service," she said.
Eventually, there will be three levels of JMG for
participants to complete. The only level that is finished is the first
one, which targets youth in grades 3-5. However, the program is still
designed to be accommodating to children older than the fifth grade.
Students who exceed grade five can train to be junior leaders and help
the younger kids, said Orvis.
Each level has eight topics or chapters to complete.
Level one has plant growth and development, soils and water, ecology
and environmental horticulture, insects and disease, landscape horticulture,
fruits and nuts, vegetables an herbs, and life skills and career exploration.
The other two levels are still being written.
Each level also has three main areas in which participants
are responsible for completion: individual activities, group activities,
and community service projects.
The team leaders monitor the individual work, but
this is never a problem, said Jones.
The area the participants in Jones' group seem
to respond to best is the community service aspect. At the end of the
school year, Jones' students were asked to write what their favorite
part of home schooling was. One boy wrote that learning to respect elderly
people was his favorite part.
One of the community service projects the group
did was to help an older couple plant and care for flower and vegetable
gardens. The kids really responded, said Jones. The elderly couple also
enjoyed telling the kids how to care for the vegetables, she said.
The program has had such success that Jones said
she has already decided to do it next year.
Jones is a member of the Master Gardeners and said
she is relieved to see how wonderful the response has been from the
community. The local television stations newspapers and even the commissioner
has praised the group on their success.
"It's neat when they (the kids) get to do community
service. It gives them a chance to give back into the community. They
can give a part of themselves. Kids don't usually get a chance to do
this," she said
Jones also said this is the only thing she has
ever taught that the kids will actually think about after they get home
from school.
They will actually bring things from home like
flowers from a creek near their house, she said. They get excited because
they can recognize plants they never knew about before.
Orvis said she would like to see the program expand
into every county in Indiana. I like to see the kids learn about plants
and have fun doing it, she said.
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