Principle One: Adventure

Dr. David Sobel’s book, “Childhood and Nature: Design Principles for Educators,” lays out eight design principles important to consider. This is important reading not only if you are designing a garden space, program or activity,  but also for environmental educators and parents alike.

“Hey, kids let’s go get groceries! Let’s go to the history museum!” Does that not sound like loads of fun? Kids respond enthusiastically to adventure. I love being swept up in a story that is bigger than myself; a story offering challenge and some goal at the end. This is a recognized fact among educators. A quick internet search reveals all sorts of adventurous, educational opportunities, support organizations, curriculum and theory.
Staff infuse a sense of adventure in Hershey Children’s Garden whenever possible. To me, all good adventures, large and small offer:

• Risk
• Mystery
• Goals
• Challenges
• A story-line

One way I create adventure is to start with a story. It could be about invading, alien tomatoes, giant sunflowers or wherever your imagination leads. The little listeners and I may then go look for the contents of our story. We also create a sense of adventure in some of our structured programs. For example, I like to weave drama (Boy do I ever!) and story into a summer camp. I might go on adventure by simply asking a child, “Hey, what do you think is on the other side of the garden?” I may even invite them to help me find the plant with the bloody roots or follow the ants to see what they are up to. The possibilities are as limitless as your imagination. Try it soon and watch the next grocery trip become an adventure! 

I would love to hear ideas you have tried with your children. Please post them here and share your creativity with our readers.
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Time to Close

“The End of All Things,” is the title to one J.R. Tolkien’s closing chapters in Return of the King and it describes this final week of October. Hershey Children’s Garden concludes its ninth season this Friday with a quiet closing of the gate and a click of the lock, but the work does not end there. Next comes fall clean up.

While the children play in another field, garden staff work away on a number of projects. First, there are bulbs to plant to welcome everyone back in the spring. Then, there are perennials to cut back and fall decorations to remove and store. Besides clean up activities, there are a number of maintenance projects we will undertake in order to make the garden even better and more beautiful next season when we open for our tenth anniversary season.

Posted by Josh Steffen

The Overarching Goal

 

I agree with author and researcher David Sobel that a child must first love something before they will take care of it. So much of environmental education seeks to horrify children concerning those nasty invading alien species without allowing anyone time to fall in love with what was, and is, here now. I recently commented on Dr. Sobel’s book, “Childhood and Nature: Design Principles for Educators.” Sobel relies upon thirty plus years of research and observation to elucidate eight design principles that the Hershey Children’s Garden incorporates. These principles are important to consider, whether you are designing a garden space or a garden program/activity, whether you are an environmental educator or a parent.

I would like to begin another eight-part series talking about each of the following principles:

• Adventures
• Fantasy and Imagination
• Animal Allies
• Maps and Paths
• Special Places
• Small Worlds
• Hunting and Gathering

Please join me over the next several weeks as I attempt to illustrate the application of these principles here at the Garden as well as what you can do in your own backyard.

Post by Josh Steffen

It’s All About Leaves This Month

Have you ever stopped to consider the wonder of leaves? In the spirit of the season, here are a few things you may not know. Leaves are solar panels…really efficient solar panels. Leaves come in unexpected forms. Did you know the spines on a cactus are really leaves? Did you know that the tendrils on a grape vine are really leaves? Did you know that all those little rose “leaves” on one little stalk are really part of one big leaf? Did you know that the celery stalks and onion bulbs you purchase are really leaves?

Leaves are extremely complex and not easy to describe. They come in so many different shapes and sizes, too. Botanists have a long list of separate descriptors for the overall shape of a leaf, the tip of the leaf, the edge of the leaf, the base of the leaf, etc.

See what I mean? There is no end to the wonder of green, but I must “leaf” off here.

Do you have any fun facts about leaves? Let me know.

Garden Fall Or’decor

 

We celebrated the beginning of my favorite season this past week by decorating Hershey Children’s Garden. Autumn is my favorite period of the year with the start of so many things and the closing of others. Fall, to me, means cozy cool weather, brilliant leaf colors and fresh cider with doughnuts.

To celebrate the entrance of autumn, the Garden was decorated with zany scarecrows and other fall-related paraphernalia. You need to come down and see a gourd spider descend from her tree top lair. See if you can find a super hero and check out a scarecrow made out of a garden hose! What makes the display so special are the many people who contribute to it. Each year several area garden clubs and garden volunteers make original scarecrows. I also let volunteers and other garden staff get creative in assembling a montage of fall decorating fun. I am always amazed at the results.
 

Posted by Josh Steffen

And Not Your Pet

If you read this blog post at all you know I am one voice among many urging parents to get their kids outside. I spent practically my entire childhood and young adult life outdoors, and look how well adjusted I am! This week is National Take a Child Outside Week, an attempt to instill in kids a love of their outdoor world.

Yes, your kids will get germs. Yes, your kids will get dirty, but there are a number of huge advantages to spending time with your kids outside. A little green space and a fertile imagination are all that is needed. Your kids need imaginations (sorry that is the subject of another post), but there are a number of easy ideas you can do.

1. Of course the top on the list is to take them to fabulous, local environmental organizations that foster great outdoor adventures.
2. Take your kids to the backyard and play a game. . .any game. Kids don’t care as long as your are there.
3. Search the Internet for some awesome, naturally-inspired crafts.
4. Make a list of things kids may find in a park and go on a scavenger hunt. Your feet might hate you, but your kids will love you.

Posted by Josh Steffen

Little Allurements

I love to give away flowers to visitors to Hershey Children’s Garden. There is something magical in a stimulatingly-colorful bloom that excites the senses. For example, one little girl gets excited over daisies, looking for more each time she visits. Zoe can not get enough of her favorite flower. Children leave with a bright memory in hand and a reason to return.

Myself, I love to pick flowers apart (No, not to determine the state of my love life.) to see the amazing design and construction in detail. Plants should be proud of the amazing “for sale” signs they produce to market themselves. This month is all about pollinators and the flowers they love. Garden staff discuss with visitors why some flowers need pollinating and why pollination is important to human beings, so make it a point to ‘petal’ on down. Maybe you, too, will leave with memories in hand.

Posted By Josh Steffen

  

It’s Time for Listening Ears

Reflection is great for the soul of individuals and organizations. I took the opportunity this past weekend to reflect a bit myself, and it was refreshing as well as enlightening.

Every now and then it’s important to stop, look and listen to what we are doing and why we are doing it. For instance, I look at how Hershey Children’s Garden and Cleveland Botanical Garden are connecting kids to their surroundings, showcasing what can be done with a natural, urban environment – one of many things we do well at the Garden.  

Your feedback is important to the development of my blog. Please share your thoughts:

• What is it about Cleveland Botanical Garden keeps engaging your family?
• What would you like to see at the Garden to further engage your family?
• What topics would you like me to discuss in future blogs?

Posted by Josh Steffen

uh-Rah for Raspberries

The aggregate fruit loved by all has come to fruit-ion in Hershey Children’s Garden, and it is ripe for the picking. One of the many memorable things to do in the Garden is to savor a few sweet raspberries you just picked yourself. A raspberry is not as it may appear. In fact, a raspberry is not even truly a berry. Shucks!

Raspberries and blackberries (also found in the Children’s Garden) are both aggregate fruits meaning multiple, separate fruits coming from one flower structure, so each of those little juicy bumps is a separate fruit! More than that, each little juicy bump came from a separate little floret. So the next time your kids are munching away on their latest discovery, ask them, “How many fruits do you see there?”

 Posted by Josh Steffen

Creating Mystical Experiences

David Sobel points out in chapter two of his book Childhood and Nature, one of the keys to adult environmental values is early childhood experiences with wild and "domesticated" wild places. Children who experience nature in a transcendent fashion grow up seeking to nurture and care for the planet. Sobel cites a recent Cornell University study where researchers interviewed 2,000 adults from across the country. The researchers found that adult environmental attitudes and behavior are positively linked to formative childhood experiences. Behind every earth conscious adult is a woods, creek or meadow where hours upon hours of play shaped their views of life. It was a sizable tract of wooded land very close to my house and my parents backyard that did it for me.

Absorbing Sobel’s point reinforces the critical role Hershey Children’s Garden plays in the lives of thousands of Northeast Ohio young residents. I can stuff visitors or students with facts to regurgitate on standardized test, but this does not lead to changed attitudes. I only provide the setting in which greater powers instill a love for the natural world. We protect and nurture what we love, not what we memorize. 
 

Posted by Josh Steffen