On a sunny day at Fieldston Lower, you’ll likely find 3rd Graders exploring the Fieldston campus’s outdoor spaces with a task at hand. The 3rd Grade teaching team of Gio Casiano, Amy Conley, Alexa Shikar, and Chris Lally have introduced an immersive curriculum of indoor and outdoor gardening activities meant to nurture students’ sense of agency and foster connections to the academic year’s culminating social studies project, “Creating a Neighborhood of the Future.”
“We want students to understand the natural systems that exist in a garden,” the 3rd Grade team shares. “We know that students, and 3rd Graders particularly, learn best through hands-on experiences. They need to get their hands dirty and use their senses to make close observations. This experience also gives students skills needed to be responsible for other living things.”
Comprising outdoor work, herb study, indoor growing, and culinary exploration, the curriculum recently included an early autumn scavenger hunt activity to utilize students’ senses and smarts. In the Fieldston Middle herb garden, Lally had each student sniff an herb — such as spearmint, sage, and thyme — enclosed in an envelope and then read a description of its appearance.
Using their noses and knowledge, students investigated the garden in teams to find the matching plant, encouraging collaboration and effective communication. They voted on the outcome when they believed they had found the right one. “With the scavenger hunt, children learn the value of using all their senses to better understand the world around them,” the teachers say. “By using their senses of smell to identify culinary herbs, they sharpen their focus on small details while engaging with the natural world.”
Exploring the herb garden also allows students to study herbs’ properties, ultimately building a vocabulary to describe their sensory experiences. Following the activity, students sampled tisanes, or herbal teas, to deepen their connection to the natural environment while promoting mindfulness and a greater sense of tradition and community.
Other outdoor exploration has the grade tending to Fieldston Lower’s own garden in unique ways. “Students learn to take care of milk crate planters, to sow vegetable seeds directly into the soil, to harvest their crops at stages in the growing process, and to practice sustainable and green gardening techniques, such as composting and natural soil supports,” the 3rd Grade team adds.
With winter approaching, students will continue working with plants by using growing tables with lights for indoor planting. Teachers will also introduce simple cooking techniques using their crops supplemented with local produce.
“Our hope is that students will continue to develop a sense of agency, knowing that they have the ability to create a positive change in their community,” teachers say. “We’d like them to understand that we can create sustainable communities, and when we treat the earth with thoughtful care, it will take care of us.”
