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SCHOOL GROUNDS TRANSFORMATION RESOURCES |
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GENERAL REFERENCEThe Learning through landscapes publications and many of the school grounds transformation reference and curriculum resources listed here are available from the Green Brick Road in Toronto, Ontario. Unless otherwise noted, all prices quoted are in Canadian dollars (2000). Since prices are subject to change, double-check the price of the resources listed and their shipping and handling costs when ordering. To order resources from the Green Brick Road contact: John Tersigni, Director
Natural Learning: The Life History of an Environmental Schoolyard:Creating Environments for Rediscovering Nature's Way of Teaching by Robin Moore and Herb
Wong This is the story of a ten-year school grounds project which transformed an ordinary asphalt school yard into a lush, natural environment. This is an important guidebook for teachers, administrators, designers and parents on how to transform a typical asphalt schoolyard into an outdoor classroom, learn innovative ways of teaching the basics in outdoor settings, and create engaging play areas that foster positive behaviour.
The Challenge of the Urban School Site Edited by D. Martin, B.
Lucas, W. Titman & S.Hayward This book offers practical advice for urban schools wishing to holistically develop their school grounds environment. This book's 10 sections cover the following topics: greening urban school grounds; multicultural aspects of developing urban school grounds; organization of limited space; seating; shelter and raised structures; art in the playground; secondary schools; practical advice (including dealing with vandalism and removing asphalt); and where to go next (specific to the UK but a useful starting point). Colour photos of innovative school grounds complete this comprehensive resource.
Grounds for Learning: A Celebration of School Site Development in Scotland by Kate
Kenny Drawing on the experience of over 50 schools in Scotland, this book aims to inspire and support schools interested in developing their grounds. Five chapters trace the recommended process to implement a successful project including: pre-planning issues to address; identifying needs; implementing the plan; and making changes to it. A variety of extensive case studies containing dozens of colour photos are detailed with information on project planning and development, the benefits, future plans, and advice to other schools. Each case study is thoughtfully placed within the most relevant section to support key points being made. This resource offers a thorough overview of the many experiences and the various techniques schools have used to ensure success via whole school and community involvement.
Special Places; Special People: The hidden curriculum of school grounds by Wendy
Titman This book is the result of a research project which took almost three years to complete. It examines the way that the design of school grounds influences children's behaviour. It is a useful working manual designed to assist schools and communities in the management of schools and their grounds. The document is divided into four sections. Section One outlines the background of the research project with a short review of previous research. Section Two presents research gathered about childrens perceptions, together with a summary of the main findings. Section Three discusses the key issues that arose and what major implications they will have for all schools, along with suggestions for changing how school grounds are designed and used. Section Four contains an alphabetical list of references and other resources. Other features include colour photographs, case studies, suggested activities, and side bars with timely quotes from children and others. Using School Grounds as an Educational Resource by Kirsty
Young This booklet provides ideas on ways to develop and use school grounds within the daily curriculum. It is divided into two sections: Case Studies and an Action Plan. The Case Studies are of sites in the U.K. that illustrate some of the most imaginative work taking place in school grounds (includes 25 colour photos and 8 site plans). The Action Plan provides six stages for changing school grounds: thinking, surveying, planning changes, consultation, costings, and doing it! An indispensable tool for any school undergoing a revitalization of their grounds.
by Jane
Stoneham This resource is based on LTL's conviction that "the benefits that well designed and managed school grounds can bring should be available to all children regardless of age and ability." This book aims to overcome the narrow range of outdoor uses that school grounds provide by highlighting ways that design can encourage abilities and overcome children's particular challenges and special needs. Fifteen chapters provide advice and information on: background research, planning, design, plant and animal use, and case studies. Blank note sheets and colour photos make this guide a very practical tool.
by J. Wood & M.
Littlewood This guide is designed to help schools develop a plan to efficiently maintain all aspects of their school grounds. Eight case studies offer insight into the pros and cons of various maintenance arrangements. A complete yearly calendar outlines a maintenance schedule for everything from shrubs to play equipment.
by Robin C.
Moore More than 200 plant species are listed in this informed guide to creatively including plants in children's play settings. Nine sections of "plant function" tables detail how various plants can enrich children's environments through: sensory variety, seasonal interest, shade quality, wildlife enhancement, erosion control, drought tolerance and more. Also included is a section on poisonous plants and pesticides, a master index of plant names by function, and an annotated bibliography.
Play, Playtime & Playgrounds:Key Issues for Teachers and Supervisors of Primary Schools by Wendy
Titman This booklet raises the issues related to the use of school grounds for play and playtime in primary schools, however it does not provide detailed instructions on developing school grounds. The six chapters discuss: surveying your grounds and their use; the importance of the informal curriculum; design/use; managing playtime; safety; and making changes over the long term.
The Great Outdoors: Restoring Children's Right to Play Outside by Mary S.
Rivkin This book “sounds the call for schools and communities to restore children's outdoor play opportunities”, gives inspiring examples of play spaces, and offers practical ideas for bringing the great outdoors to your school.
A Legacy of Us: Maintaining & Managing Your School Grounds Hampshire County
Schools Landscape Project The maintenance and management of school grounds should not be viewed in isolation but needs to form an integral part of the general culture and philosophy of every school. The video provides an overview of the key issues relating to the maintenance and management of school grounds. It examines the division of responsibilities and illustrates both the benefits and the practical issues of grounds management through the experiences of several schools. The accompanying manual explores these issues in greater detail, adding to the invaluable practical advice this kit provides on the long-term success of a school grounds project.
Greenprints for Changing schools Sue Grieg, Graham Pike
and David Selby This is a handbook for all decision-makers in the education system which links the theory and practice of educational change. The greenprint looks at effective strategies for integrating environmental concerns into the curriculum. Through a series of case studies, the authors show how successful change at the institutional level depends on important attitudinal changes at the personal level.
Global Teacher, Global Learner Graham Pike and David
Selby This definitive handbook for teachers has been developed by the authors after considerable experience of working with teachers from 22 local education authorities. The book exlores and develops the theory and practice of global education, as well as offering an extensive range of practical, lively and stimulating activities for the primary and secondary classroom. This is an invaluable resource for all those concerned and involved with developing a global perspective in education. CURRICULUM ACTIVITIESAll Learning through Landscapes publications are available from the Green Brick Road. Phone:
(416) 421-9816 or 1-800-GREEN-38
Geography in the School Grounds by R. Hare, C.
Attenborough, & T. Day This book offers a range of exciting activities for practical work in geography using the school grounds as a model. Topics covered include map work skills; the use of photographs and models; weather, water and landforms; people, settlements and land use; environmental quality and a sense of place. Excellent dual resource for curricular use and school grounds project development.
Mathematics in the School Grounds by Zoe
Rhydderch-Evans This resource offers a whole range of exciting ideas for teaching mathematics outdoors. Four main sections deal with Numbers, Measurement, Shape and Space, and Data Work. Each section contains examples of teaching approaches with tables that list math exercises using various outdoor features including: ponds, animals, pathways, trees/shrubs, buildings, conservation areas, and weather.
School Grounds Pack: Mathematics Learning Through
Landscapes This useful resource contains activities for individual, pair, small group and whole class work on number counting, number patterns, measurement, shape and space and data-gathering.
English in the School Grounds by Brian
Keaney English in the School Grounds can be used to encourage creative thought and develop speaking, listening, reading and writing skills. This book is divided into four main sections of Stories, Poetry, Drama and Language. There are over 30 interactive activities which get students to tell stories, to imagine and act, to write poetry, or to verbalize experiences, all within the context of outdoor elements.
Pond Design Guide for Schools by Graham
Flatt This booklet contains advice and information that any school or class will need to help them plan, build, plant and maintain their own pond.
Science in the School Grounds by Gill
Thomas This book provides dozens of practical science activities which are done in the school grounds. The investigations and exercises are divided into eight sections including: Weather, Waste Management, Mini-Beasts, Trees, Ponds, Grassed Areas, Wild Flowers, and the Built Environment. Science in the School Grounds provides the tools to stimulate interest in the sciences as well as the environment.
The Seasons in the School Grounds by Sue
Rowe This is a folder of imaginative activities for using the school grounds throughout the seasons. These ideas will help young people observe and learn from the change of seasons.
Arts in the School Grounds by Brain
Keaney This book in the school grounds series looks at the numerous artistic opportunities that school grounds can offer. The subject areas of design, music, drama, and movement are incorporated into the following 3 sections. Part one "Observing and Recording" provides activities that allow students to discover landscapes for themselves. Part two, "Making and Composing" allows for creative expression and intimacy with the environment. Part three, "Celebrating and Performing" transforms the grounds into an arena of expression and exploration of space. The case studies, inspiring colour photographs, and photocopiable work sheets will assist schools in planning sites and considering projects such as working with resident artists.
History in the School Grounds By Jacqui
Dean This book focuses on key historical skills and helps children develop connections with the past. The imaginative activities in the book encourage children to find out for themselves that people in the past were resourceful and creative problem-solvers. The activities help children explore the school's past, develop a sense of time and place, enact the past, look at inventions and how they worked, investigate past methods of producing and preserving food, generating heat, using fibres for clothing, working with wood and clay, constructing shelters, and uncovering the past through archaeology. The activities are designed to be used by non-specialist teachers, in all kinds of school environments.
Exploring Woodlands:A Cross-curricular Approach to Investigating Woodlands by Tony
Pearce This in-depth exploration of woodlands provides cross-curricular, field-based activities plus follow-up classroom work suggestions. Each of the twenty units contains photocopiable sheets with teachers notes and expansion ideas. A wide range of topics span from investigation of a single tree, to the nature & functioning of the woodland, to the consumers that live in the woodland.
Growing Naturally: A Teacher's Guide to Organic Gardening by Maggi
Brown Organic gardening activities offer teachers an exciting way of educating throughout a wide range of curriculum areas while improving and developing the school grounds. This book provides basic facts about organic gardening practices and ideas for investigations, activities and experiments, giving teachers the necessary background information to create an organic garden. Chapters cover Preparing and Caring for the Soil; Recycling; Worm Composting; Pest Control; Vegetable Gardening and Window Sill Planting.
Trees in the School Grounds by R. Clark & P.
Walters Using trees as the focus, this guide contains twelve main activity themes and five school-wide class projects. Each activity includes teaching objectives, background notes, required equipment, and suggestions for Investigation and Interpretation. Some of the themes are: understanding trees, tree food products, old trees, wood properties, and adopting trees. Projects involve students in planting trees and hedgerows, and in creating a tree nursery, a tree-trail, and an outdoor workshop. Complete with photographs, sketches and diagrams, this book gives teachers a range of exciting indoor and outdoor activities to use year-round in all subjects.
Wildlife and the School Environment by Royal Society for
the Protection of Birds and The presence of wildlife in the school grounds can provide many opportunities for their study while fostering a positive attitude towards the environment. This booklet contains lots of great ideas for developing seven typical areas of school grounds into places for wildlife including buildings, hard surfaces, ponds, wildflowers, insect gardens, shrubs, and woodlands. Different teaching activities are suggested for each area.
Making the Playground by Eileen
Adams This is an account of a children's project in Design Technology, Art, English and Mathematics to improve their outdoor environment. The project concentrates on the environment and incorporates games and play as well as artefacts that can be used in play activities. This is an account of the planning and development process and the curriculum connections made throughout the project. This book can be obtained through Bacon and Hughs: 1 (800) 563-2468 WILDLIFE AND EDIBLE GARDENING REFERENCEGreen Teacher Magazine This is a magazine written by teachers for teachers to enhance environmental and global education across the curriculum at all grade levels. Every issue contains practical articles with reports of what successful teachers, parents and schools are doing, ready-to-use activities and cross-curricula activities for various grade levels, perspective articles on ideas for rethinking education in light of environmental and global problems, and resource listings and reviews of new books, kits, games, videos and other resources. The May/June 1996 issue of Green Teacher, Transforming School Grounds, is entirely devoted to school grounds greening concepts and provides many useful resources and contacts. To obtain a listing of back issues and details on subscriptions, contact: Green
Teacher Phone:
(416) 960-1244 Electronic packs, including Transforming School Grounds, can also be purchased over the internet. http://www.greenteacher.com Greening School Grounds: Creating Habitats for Learning By Green Teacher Magazine In Green Teacher's Greening School Grounds, you will find ideas for numerous schoolyard projects, from tree nurseries to school composting to native plant gardens, along with ideas for enhancing learning by addressing the diverse needs of students. More than a dozen schoolyard habitat options are presented ranging from rooftop and multi-cultural gardens, through desert and butterfly gardens, to ponds and prairie restorations. For project planners, there are useful tips on minimizing vandalism and maximizing participation, and raising funds. For teachers, there are dozens of outdoor classroom curriculum links, an annotated bibliography of learning resources, and up-to-date listings of funders and training organizations.
The Urban Outback - Wetlands for Wildlife This is a guide to wetland restoration and frog-friendly backyards produced by the Metro Toronto Zoo's Adopt-a-Pond programme. The book is out of print but you can download it from the Metro Toronto Zoo website. The Adopt-A-Pond programme also has a number of resources on creating a schoolyard wetland habitat including a cross-curricular guide. This guide meets curriculum guidelines and will help teachers further integrate wetland biology and amphibian conservation into the classroom. These materials can be found on: http://www.torontozoo.com/adoptapond/
A Wetland Conservation Plan: A Landowner's Guide to Wetland Conservation Planning Landowner Resource
Centre To obtain a free copy, contact: Landowner Resource
Centre Phone: (613) 692-2390 or 1 (800) 387-5304
(from 613 area code only)
Potholes and Ponds: A Pond Study Guide for Elementary School Children by Vlademir H.
Murawsky This book includes a series of activities that help students answer fundamental questions for themselves that they usually ask about ponds. Each activity has a suggested grade level, a list of materials needed, a step-by-step procedure and suggestions for follow-up learning.
Bioplanning a North Temperate Garden by Diana
Beresford-Kroeger This book provides several bioplans for gardens that can be adapted to the field, the backyard, the bush and the school yard. To bioplan a garden, the gardener must view the site as a biological system and the activity of gardening as an ecological task. To assist in bioplanning a garden, the author provides not only adaptable plans but also planting instructions emphasizing ecofunction, organic care and environmentally-friendly means of pest control. The book contains over 100 full colour photographs of species and landscapes.
Greening Canada: A Guide to Community Tree Planting The Conservation
Council of Ontario This guide provides useful tree-planting information. Please note: on Page 13, there is a diagram showing how trees should be planted and staked. While this kind of planting is appropriate for many situations, trees planted at grade level as shown in the diagram have a very low survival rate in schoolyards. Go to Site Design and Types of Projects for information and diagrams on planting trees in school yards. For a free copy of Greening Canada, contact: Tree Canada
Foundation.
Gardening with Trees and Shrubs by Trevor
Cole This is one of the most comprehensive tree and shrub guide available for eastern Ontario. It is designed to help you choose, buy, plant and care for deciduous and coniferous trees and shrubs. It also includes information on ground covers and climbing vines.
The Guide to Trees of Canada and North America by Alan
Mitchel This book provides a highly informative, detailed guide to trees in Canada. In full colour spreads, each tree is featured as it appears in a typical landscape, with various aspects such as seasonal changes, male and female flowers and seeds, leaf shape and bark shown in fine detail and clearly labelled.
Native Trees of Canada by R.C.
Hosie This book is an excellent guide to over 140 species of coniferous and deciduous native trees. The richly illustrated pages lend themselves to quick tree identification by providing drawings of the form of each tree species and pictures of the features used to identify them such as twigs, leaves, seeds, flowers, buds and bark. Maps are also provided to show where each species is found.
A Guide to Enjoying Wildflowers Donald and Lillian
Stokes This guide to introduces a new approach to wildflowers - learning about their lore, lives and adaptations throughout the year. The guide includes fifty wildflowers. For each wildflower there are five sections: an introduction to its lore and medicinal uses, a description of its garden relatives, interesting seasonal features of the plants, an explanation of the flower's design, and a summary of the plant's life cycle. The majority of plants are suitable for growing in school grounds wildflower gardening projects.
Plants for Play by Robin
Moore In this book, the author shares his years of experience in selecting plants that support children's play activities. More than 200 species of plant species are listed in eighteen plant function tables such as: Play Value; Fragrance; Play Props; Fall Colour; Fruits; Herbs and Nuts; Winter Flowers; Shade Quality; Seasonal Interest; Erosion Control; and Wildlife Enhancement. Plants are coded by climatic zone and a special section identifies and discusses poisonous plants.
Rodale's All-New Encyclopaedia of Organic Gardening: The Indispensable Resource for Every Gardener Rodale Press, Inc.,
1997 This resource has over 400 entries of the most practical, up-to-date gardening information available. The information has been collected from garden experts across north America. Rodale's Garden Insect, Disease, and Weed Identification Guide by M. Smith and A.
Carr Rodale's Colour Handbook of Garden Insects by Ann
Carr
The New Organic Grower's Four Season Harvest by Eliot
Coleman
Natural Gardening by John Kadel Boring,
Erica Glasener, Glen Keator, Jim Knope,
Jane Scott and Sally Wasowski This is an excellent resource for creating a natural garden to attract wildlife. Each page depicts a different species of plants including trees, shrubs, vines, flowering annuals and perennials, grasses and wildflowers. Also shown on each page are the plants' native habitats, growing zones, height and spread, blooming times, light and moisture requirements and the wildlife they are likely to attract.
Attracting Backyard Wildlife by Bill
Merilees This guide will help you to create and maintain gardens that will attract wildlife. It also includes diagrams for the construction of toad holes, raccoon roosts, bat houses, squirrel nest boxes and bird feeders.
Stokes Bird Gardening Book: The complete guide to creating a bird-friendly habitat in your backyard by Donald and Lillian
Stokes This comprehensive guide, illustrated with 300 colour photographs, tells you what you need to know to create a paradise for birds. It includes information on how to attract nesting birds with the right kinds of trees and shrubs, which flowering plants birds love, the benefits of ponds and birdbaths, how to attract birds to feeding stations, and tips on increasing Winter bird populations.
Worms Eat Our Garbage by Mary
Appelhof This book is considered the definitive guide on how to set up and maintain a worm composting system at school. It is full of interesting classroom activities which integrate earthworm activities with soil science, plant growth studies and ecological issues. Learning processes include scientific methods, observing, recording data, measurement and problem-solving.
Let it Rot! Stu
Campbell This book takes an easy-going approach to demystifying composting. It covers all the usual methods as well as some less-usual ones. It is an excellent resource with a wealth of practical information on every aspect of composting, from composter construction to the end product.
The Real Dirt by Mark Cullen and
Lorraine Johnson This book provides practical information, plans for building your own compost bins, answers to commonly asked questions and activities to interest children in the composting process.
Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting by Louise
Riotte “The magic and mystery of companion planting has intrigued and fascinated” people for centuries, yet it is part of the gardening world that is still being explored. We know that some plants assist each other to grow well and repel damaging insects and even repel other plants. This book provides useful information about plants to use in companion planting and the amount of time it takes for the beneficial effects to become apparent. The book is compiled in alphabetical order according to subjects.
The Growing Classroom: A
Gardening-Based Science and Nutrition Curriculum
How Can One Sell the Air? Postscript by Steef
Davidson This is an interpretation of a speech delivered in l885 by Chief Seattle of the Duwamish people to the president of the United States. It can be used in conjunction with any topic on the environment. WILDLIFE
AND EDIBLE GARDENING
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