As the anticipation for the new school year builds across North Carolina, many students are just days away from stepping back into the classroom. For educators and school administrators considering how to enrich the learning environment, the prospect of a school garden offers a unique and engaging opportunity. Whether your school boasts an existing garden that could benefit from a fresh perspective, or if you're eager to cultivate a new green space but feel overwhelmed by the initial steps, we hope this resource can help: "Designing Your School Garden: Kindergarten - Fifth Grade."

• Functionality: The guide provides practical advice on designing a garden that is accessible to all students and conducive to a variety of educational activities. It covers everything from plant combinations to planning pathways and seating.
• Aesthetics: Beyond its practical uses, a school garden can be a beautiful and inspiring addition to the campus. The resource offers insights into creating visually appealing plant combinations, blending diverse plant textures and colors, and fostering an environment that encourages connection with nature.
• Student Discovery: At its core, a school garden is a living laboratory. The guide emphasizes fostering student-led exploration and discovery, encouraging curiosity about the natural world, and providing hands-on learning experiences that go beyond the textbook.
• Curricular Connections: Perhaps one of the most powerful aspects of a school garden is its potential to serve as an interdisciplinary teaching tool. "Designing Your School Garden" highlights numerous ways to weave garden-based learning into the existing curriculum, spanning subjects such as science (plant life cycles, ecosystems), math (measurement, counting), language arts (journaling, descriptive writing), and even social studies (food systems, cultural connections to plants).