Time Commitment

Gardens take work. Your workforce includes yourself, your students, and any volunteers that you are able to convince to help out with the project. Depending on the size of your classroom garden, the time commitment will vary.

Generally speaking, expect that you and your students will spend approximately 15 minutes a day on garden maintenance. Every ten days or so, (depending on the size of the garden) you may have to spend an additional 30-60 minutes on garden maintenance.

If you expect that you will need a few "helping hands" to fill in the blanks, it's a good idea to reach out to parents and colleagues (or even community garden groups) early in the process to gauge the amount of volunteer help you'll be able to count on.

For students, the best way to engage students of all ages is to assign specific tasks to each student so that they can be held accountable for their roles. Every one of these roles provides learning opportunities. Depending on the role, they may be asked to notice, to observe, to interact, to document, and then to discuss; it also provides you, the teacher, with critical feedback that makes your job as "garden overseer" much easier.

Examples of "Roles" that students can take on:

• Plant Police
• pH Patrol
• Leaf Monitors
• Water Supervisors
• Bug Inspectors