The Development of Environmental Education Activities and Inservice Training for Integrating the Use of a Restored Woodland Wildflower Garden at Green Bay Southwest High School

Abstract

During the summer of 1998 a woodland wildflower restoration project was initiated by myself and a group of students in the outdoor classroom of Southwest High School. The garden that was planted over the course of the next three years provided an opportunity for students to learn about not only wildflowers, but also about their connection to nature. Initially, there were no curriculum materials, however, to support this. The purpose of this project was to create interdisciplinary curriculum materials for the woodland wildflower garden to increase the utilization of the outdoor classroom and the infusion of environmental education across disciplines. A survey was done to assess what the staff at Southwest High School knew about the wildflower garden and the outdoor classroom and what barriers they perceived were preventing them from using it. A garden curriculum booklet was developed and arranged in the order of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction's EE content standards with both EE and science performance standards tied to the objectives of each activity. A teacher inservice was conducted to raise teachers' awareness and knowledge of how the garden could be utilized for EE instruction. A participant survey was done after the inservice to see how effective the inservice was in reducing the perceived barriers to its use. The overall results were that the staff at Southwest High School became more knowledgeable about using the outdoors as a classroom and found the wildflower garden to be a unique resource to use across many disciplines. It is recommended that more activities be added to the garden curriculum booklet and that future inservices are offered to not only our high school, but other high schools in the district as well.