The National Gardening Association will provide teachers with a familiar teaching medium, an indoor garden laboratory, to excite children about science inquiry. Through the special design of the Grow Lab, students will be able to quickly grow vegetables and flowers through full life cycles, from seed to seed, in the classroom. This curriculum encourages the integration of science with other subjects in each classroom day. The purpose of Grow Lab is: 1) to establish and reinforce early in life that problem solving and scientific inquiry are fun, and not just for scientists; and 2) to teach a variety of science skills and concepts, not limited to plant science, using plants as the tool with which young children learn to make sense of their world. The National Gardening Association will develop, evaluation and disseminate three Grow Lab science activity guides for elementary and middle school. Activity kits, a teacher newsletter, a series of wall charts, a teacher training videotape, an extensive Grow Lab certified instructor program and a national marketing plan in conjunction with Hubbard Scientific will also be completed. The National Gardening Association has an excellent reputation in the quality and impact of their materials. The staff for this project are both experienced and highly qualified to conduct these activities. This project affords a unique and extremely promising program to stimulate and provide an enjoyable applied context to learn science using the familiar environment of gardening. The project's goals are consistent with those of the Instructional Materials program.
