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Mid-Year Report

July 2009 to March 2010

As we enter the final quarter of the 2009-2010 fiscal year and begin our operational planning

for 2010-2011, the REAL School Gardens (RSG) staff is taking time to reflect on what we have

learned and accomplished during our first year as a regional team serving 66 schools in five

North Texas school districts. We are encouraged by the recent growth of our organization and

the building momentum and recognition of our programs. In this mid-year report, we are happy

to share our progress toward our four organizational goals from July 2009 to March 2010.

GOAL 1: Help elementary schools create, support and sustain school gardens so children

connect with nature in engaging, nurturing and inspirational ways

Key Accomplishments:

We have installed three brand new school gardens, and we have enhanced 10 gardens

at our “Dig In” partner schools. This represents 76% of gardens completed relative to

our commitment to install new gardens in six schools and enhance established gardens

at eleven new “Dig In” schools.

Principals, teachers, and parents were represented among the 58 total participants at

our new school and “Dig In” retreats.

Gardens at two of our existing school partners were improved through the addition of

some of our designated “Essential Features” of learning gardens.

HIGHLIGHTS:

Thirteen successful garden installations with four more to install this school year

Record levels of media coverage

First-ever Professional Development and Networking events in Dallas

Several service-learning projects within elementary schools and along with

community partners

Deepened school district involvement in school gardens

Powerful national partnerships

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Featured Activities:

Garden Installations Each of our 13 garden installations has drawn crowds of volunteer support which includes school staff, students, parents, and community partners. At one installation more than 430 students came out to volunteer!

Harry C. Withers Dig In Installation Lyndon B. Johnson Dig In Installation

2009-2010 School Retreats At retreats for our new school partners and our “Dig In” schools, we featured educational

sessions which connected garden-based instruction to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills

(TEKS). The 58 attendees at these events were both engaged and energized.

Educators76%

Families12%

Community12%

Retreat Attendance58 Participants

27%

73%

Prior Attendance

Returning First Time

“…I love the excitement

and hard work that

everyone on staff puts

into helping the schools

become a better

outdoor learning

environment.”

–Retreat Participant

“Every time I look at the garden it makes

me happy, because it makes me focus.”

–Student, Lyndon B. Johnson Elementary

School

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Sustaining Our Gardens To boost garden learning opportunities, usability, and attractiveness, we worked with two long-

standing school partners in Fort Worth – Alice Contreras and South Hills Elementary Schools –

to include some of our designated “Essential Features” in their gardens.

Alice Contreras Before Alice Contreras After

South Hills Before South Hills After

GOAL 2: Encourage the use of school gardens to support children’s learning of skills,

processes and content while immersing them in the natural world

Key Accomplishments:

Our educators provided model teaching through 66 “garden integration visits” to our

school partners, reaching 526 elementary school educators directly and ultimately

impacting 7,997 students.

Based on information from reports submitted in January, more than 391 teachers and

8,468 students have experienced garden-based learning at our schools.

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83 participants from throughout North Texas attended our January Professional

Development event, which was the first ever held in Dallas. Combined with the record

attendance of 190 people at our August Professional Development event, we have

made great strides in expanding the network of education professionals impacted by

our high-quality training opportunities.

Featured Activities:

Teaching Visits

RSG educators directly interacted with 526 educators during garden integration visits which

employ model teaching to expand educators’ perceptions of what is possible in school gardens

and promote garden use for all academic subjects. On one such visit to David E. Smith

Elementary School, the lesson focused on soil science and erosion, and our educator asked

where erosion occurs. One bright student raised his hand and explained, “it happens in the

“Badlands” of South Dakota.” Much to our educator’s surprise, students did not realize that

erosion happens everywhere, including on the school campus. Using the tools of a scientist (our

five senses) during a walk around the outdoor classroom, students quickly recognized several

examples of erosion and become more excited to learn about soil properties. There’s no need

to travel thousands of miles when you can learn lessons just outside your door. When learning

becomes real and tangible, children are more interested and engaged in their own education.

Eric teaching at David E. Smith E. S. Ellen teaching at Bonnie Brae E. S.

Dallas Professional Development Day

In January, we hosted our first PD event in Dallas. The event took place at the Dallas

Independent School District’s Environmental Education Center. The 83 participants benefited

from sessions presented by RSG staff and community experts on topics ranging from the work

of the naturalist to grant writing to the value of school gardens in teaching the Texas Essential

Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). More than 70% of participant respondents stated that they had

acquired new knowledge and skills which would help them teach outdoors.

“Studying soil was cool.” – Fifth-grade student, David E. Smith Elementary School

“[RSG staff’s] interaction with teachers and students adds so much to our understanding of how to better use our garden." – Principal, Rosemont 6th Grade School

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GOAL 3: Foster a cooperative spirit among schools, families and the surrounding community

through involvement with school gardens

Key Accomplishments:

We have completed the Community Design process with 13 of our 17 school partners

for the 2009-2010 academic year.

Our schools have independently mobilized more than 220 individuals for volunteering in

the garden, providing more than 1,146 hours of hands-on support.

Featured Activities:

Design Charrettes

All six of our school partners receiving brand new gardens participated in design charrettes,

cooperative events that involve schools, families and the surrounding community in the

Community Design process. This collaborative effort sparked a gathering of more than 300

people at one school and led to a partnership with a nearby high school at another. Another

school had such a diverse turnout that the event was held in three languages – English, Spanish

and Arabic. The resulting garden designs were colorful testaments to the children’s enthusiasm

for the project, interest in learning through nature, and hope for the future.

“The TEKS class was very useful to me because I feel I can convince more teachers to go out in the garden.” – PD Day Participant

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T.A. Sims garden design Lowery Road garden design

Community Supports Gardens

Our programs have galvanized a diverse and robust coalition of supporters for our school

gardens. Our schools have been successful in recruiting more than 220 volunteers through

activities such as after school garden clubs and family gardening days. Each school site is

thriving due to contributions of materials and labor from school district building and grounds

crews as well as in-kind donations from vendors. Parents and community members have gone

above and beyond expectations in providing technical expertise and skills. For instance, many of

our schools benefit from the involvement of community members who are master naturalists

or master composters.

Goal 4: Create a vibrant, sharing network of educators and partners who commit to putting

school gardens at the heart of urban neighborhoods

Key Accomplishments:

The three REAL People Networking Events we have held to-date have attracted a

cumulative number of 563 attendees.

485 volunteers have supported our organizational needs.

We continue to experience strong web traffic with nearly 14,500 website visits between

July 2009 and March 2010, which represents more than 9,600 unique visitors.

Our work has attracted significant media attention, including features in 13 major print

and broadcast outlets.

Featured Activities:

REAL People Networking Events

During the fall, we organized two highly effective REAL People Networking Events: one at Alice

Contreras Elementary School in Fort Worth drawing 183 attendees and one at Barbara Bush

Elementary School in Grand Prairie drawing 193 attendees. An inspiring local group called

“Drum Café” led the audience in creative programming focused on children and outdoor

learning. In February, we hosted our first REAL People networking event in Dallas, bringing out

187 attendees – a great turn-out for the first REAL School Gardens event in the community! The

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event took place at Alex Sanger Elementary School and featured a student-led garden tour,

student performances, and a presentation by place-based education expert David Sobel.

Volunteers and Service-Learning Projects

As a result of proactive volunteer recruitment, we benefited from 1,332 volunteer hours from

485 volunteers. In November, Motorola employees joined us for maintenance at one of our

school gardens, and in August, youth from Tarrant County Juvenile Services pitched in to clean

up two other school gardens. In a calming outdoor setting, the youth contributed to their

community while learning about gardening and native plants.

Our outreach efforts also led to new partnerships with Master Gardeners and Texas Christian

University (TCU) students. Working with university students and professors affords numerous

opportunities for service-learning wherein the older students are presented with real-world

opportunities to apply and share knowledge in the garden as well as to develop creative

solutions to academic and community problems. For example, one TCU class worked with five

of our school partners to provide vegetables for refugees through the Refugee Services of

Texas, which allowed all students involved to not only explore the garden’s potential for food

production but also to use the garden to serve the broader community.

Electronic Outreach Currently, our online communications efforts have a broad reach. In addition to the 14,455 website visits that have occurred so far this year, we connect with 2,121 people via electronic mailings. More than 57% of our web traffic represents new visitors, and visitors view more than four pages within our site, on average. In an effort to educate our community about the importance of our work and its funding needs, we launched our first electronic appeal in December 2009. The email was opened by nearly 25 percent of recipients – a strong open rate – and was directly responsible for five donations. Media Exposure

We have utilized recent events to generate public attention and have distributed press releases

announcing our Motorola grant and program expansion in Dallas. As a result of these proactive

public relations measures, as well as our notable program growth, media attention for our

“We received many compliments about the organization, professionalism and quality of yesterday’s program. It has truly been a pleasure working with you.”

– Educator, Barbara Bush Elementary

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programs is at an all-time high, including coverage in the following 13 major print and

broadcast outlets:

Fox 4 News

Noticias 23

NBC 5 News

ABC 8 News 8

Dallas/Fort Worth Close-up (CW33)

KERA (Dallas School Zone)

The Dallas Morning News

Association for Career and Technical Education magazine

Fort Worth magazine

Converge magazine

Mother Earth News magazine

Jack and Jill magazine

Advocate magazine

Moving Forward: Sustaining our Gardens and our Organization

School District Investment

For the first time in our history, Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD) has plans to

invest directly in our program – a development that will greatly enhance the sustainability of

our work in the area. Fort Worth After School will offer teachers at 22 of our 34 partner schools

in the district a stipend to undergo training in the Junior Master Gardener curriculum. FWISD

will also purchase the curriculum manuals and supplemental materials. We are currently

working with Chief Academic Officer Michael Sorum to develop a professional development

contract, which will result in 12 hours of RSG professional development for all 80 FWISD

elementary lead science teachers. These educators will then use the “teach the teacher”

approach to share the information with colleagues.

Partnership Development

We continue to nurture local relationships with BRIT Teacher Learning Center, Texas Christian

University, Tarrant County Juvenile Services and neighborhood vendors. In addition, we are

actively engaged in conversations with potential national partners regarding the development

of a timely and rigorous gardening curriculum for use in elementary schools. Finally, we have

recently formed a powerful national partnership with PEER Associates to perform an evaluation

to determine the impact of our programming on students. This relationship is connected to our

participation in the Place-Based Education Evaluation Collaborative (PEEC), giving us not only

increased national visibility but also access to 10 years of combined institutional knowledge

from organizations, such as the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, Shelburne Farms and

Project CO-SEED.