Symposium Schedule
Note: Schedule subject to change
Saturday Schedule
8-9am Registration & Breakfast
9:15-9:45am Opening Session
10-11am Workshops
Educating the Next Generation of Eaters
Chef Brenda Ruiz, Slow Foods Sacramento
Eating “Slowly” means being connected to and understanding where food comes from, knowing how it’s grown and how to prepare and share food with others. Join this workshop to learn about newly published FREE Slow Foods resources and make a simple recipe.
Gardens as a Tool for Behavior Management
Vanessa Forwood, Soil Born Farms
School gardens are the core of the school community and have the potential to provide a space for behavioral development outside of the traditional classroom environment. This workshop digs into the ways gardens can be used to benefit students who have difficulty staying on task in the classroom.
Discover Bugs • An NGSS Aligned Insect Anatomy Unit for Grades 3-5
Shannon Hardwicke, Soil Born Farms
Is it an insect? How do I know? What are the stages of the insect’s life cycle? How do insects of different types compare/contrast? Come discover creative ways to engage students in critical thinking about insects and their creative adaptations.
Connecting Youth to the Natural World, Themselves, and Each Other
Alyssa Kassner, Soil Born Farms
Discover how to connect your students to nature, the garden, themselves and each other in simple and meaningful ways. Participants will learn simple ways to awaken sensory awareness as well as how to use child passions to create connections to the natural world.
Seasonal Planting for the School Garden
Alex Morton, Soil Born Farms
Learn which vegetables to plant and in what season. We will also cover which vegetables grow best from seed versus from nursery starts, perennial vegetables, grains, and low maintenance herbs that grow well in our area.
11:15am-12:15pm Workshops
What Happened to the Bees, An NGSS Aligned Unit for 3-5
Lisa Bettencourt, Pacific Elementary SCUSD
Come experience an NGSS aligned unit that will give you a framework to help students discover bees and to plan a student designed habitat that will support our buzzing friends throughout the year.
Flower Garden Power
Margaret Cooper, UC Davis
This workshop will focus on the integration of flowers to teach science to classrooms of all ages. The topics will include flower management, habitat, pollinators, plant life cycle, flowers’ colors, shapes, and patterns, and edible flowers. Included in the workshop will be a hands on activity for further application.
Regenerative Growing Practices
Farmstand Classroom • Tyler Stowers, Soil Born Farms
A primer on how to grow an abundance of nutrient dense food while simultaneously building healthy soil.
Building with Recycled Materials
Edwin Wagner
Learn how to use pallets and recycled materials to create enhancements on a budget for your school garden. Come ready to swing a hammer.
Student Led Garden Tours
AnneMarie Kennedy, Grant Union High School
Learn about Grant High School’s garden tours for elementary schools and how to create cross-age teaching and lessons in the garden at your own school. GHS students and staff will share three garden activities that older students can teach to younger students and how to integrate NGSS standards.
12:30-1:30pm Lunch
1:30-2:15pm Student Panel
2:30-3:30pm Workshops
Plant Parts, Seeds, Needs and More, NGSS aligned for K-2
Michele Rossi, SCUSD Science Coach
This NGSS unit for K-2 will take you through a 10 week unit that will teach students all about plant life cycle and include fun engaging hand-on activities as well as teaching tools and assessment.
Empowering Students Through Work
Stephen Payne, Sacramento Waldorf School
As the popularity of school gardens grow, so does the recognition of its benefits. This workshop will look at the many intellectual, psychological, and emotional qualities gained by school children who have the opportunities to work outside gardening.
Compost 101
Jenn MacLeod, Soil Born Farms
The basics of starting and maintaining a healthy, happy compost.
Back to Our Roots
Gao Ly Yang and Michele Sikora, Soil Born Farms
Let’s find ways to create a home in the garden, not just for our plants, but for our students and community members too. Here, we will brainstorm various culturally representative plants and how to design and start your own multicultural beds, along with some cultural recipes you can cook with the crops.
Cultivating Environmental Stewardship with Youth Leadership
Carrie Strohl, Pueblo Vista Magnet School, Napa
Enlisting students during extracurricular times of the school day is a viable way to build youth leaders and maintain a school garden at the same time. This session will share the success stories of three garden clubs at an environmental science magnet school.
3:45-4:45pm Workshops
The Multi-Cultural Garden: Acknowledging and Celebrating Heritage in Agricultural Education Spaces
Marisa Coyne and Abraham Cazares, UC Davis Children’s Garden
Join us for a workshop focused on cultural sensitivity in farm and garden spaces. We will discuss our experience working with the themes of equity and inclusion at the University of California, Davis (UCD) Student Farm. The workshop will include suggestions for in class and in garden activities, planting recommendations, and additional reading / lesson plan resources.
The Power of Planting Trees
Nick Anicich, Soil Born Farms
In this workshop, you’ll learn how to utilize the power of tree planting to improve community health and increase parent and community involvement at your school site. From navigating school facilities and district approvals, to engaging students in tree siting and planting, this workshop will help you plant and care for fruit, shade, and evergreen trees on your school campus.
Tips and Tricks to Food Adventuring
Ameri-Corp Volunteers, Food Literacy Center
Find out how we teach our kids to not only try vegetables, but enjoy them. Make a recipe Food literacy style and discuss your own personal barriers to vegetable consumption.
Special Education Garden Programing
Aaron McClatchy, Luther Burbank High School
Come collaborate, share best practices and stories of gardening with students who have disabilities. Particular focus may be given to the following topics, autism, vocational and independent living skills development.
4:45 – 6pm Sunset Happy Hour & Networking
Sunday Schedule
8:30 – 9am Breakfast
9 – 9:45am World Cafe Brainstorming and Sharing
10:00am- 12:30pm Diggin’ Deeper: Hands-On Workshops Workshops
Gardening 101
Nick Anicich, Gao Ly Yang, Soil Born Farms and Dave Chapell, Sac Food Bank
Learn the basic in composting, bed prep, seeding, transplanting, fruit tree care and vermicomposting. If you are an educator who is starting at ground zero, this is the workshop for you.
Practice, Play and Create
Shannon Hardwicke and Alyssa Kassner, Soil Born Farms
Come practice and experience lessons from the Growing Together Curriculum while creating helpful tools of the trade for your classroom and garden. Learn games and songs that will facilitate learning. Take home great materials, use your creativity and be ready to be a kid.
Garden First Aid
Jenn MacLeod, Soil Born Farms
Create a natural first aid kit for your classroom while learning about sustainable herbs, how to make salves and other creative herbal uses.
Sowing Seeds of Serenity
Amy Green
Join Amy to address the epidemic of childhood anxiety, anger and worry, and learn meaningful ways to teach resiliency skills to children using the garden and art. Leave feeling relaxed and optimistic, with an action plan to plant your seeds of serenity for those who need it most – our youth.
Eat Your Veggies
Michelle Sikora, Soil Born Farms
Come learn how to cook delicious, seasonal, simple recipes with students in the classroom or the garden. We will go over useful materials that can fit any budget, recipes, plus kitchen safety with students. We will dig into several hands-on cooking activities featuring recipes we use at the school campuses we visit and send you off with a pack of kid-friendly recipes!
