You have been studying plants in science.  Mrs. Parks has asked our class to use what we have learned about plants and their needs to plan a school garden.  You and your partner will follow the directions of this WebQuest task to design and start the school garden.
 
 

You and your partner are going to design and plan a school garden.  In doing this, you will:

• visit websites to determine the style of garden you want and justify why Mrs. Parks might want this style of garden
• design the shape of your garden
• calculate the area and perimeter of your garden
• use on-line nursery catalogs to choose the plants that will be in your garden
• calculate how many plants you will need and establish the cost of starting a school garden
• use on-line resources to help you begin your garden
• create a multi-media presentation to present your garden plan to the class

Student Sites
 

Teacher Sites
 

Next

• First you will be paired with another classmate.

• Together you will visit the Garden Styles web pages.

• After you have done that, decide what style you think would be best for Westside.

• Then use the word processing program of you choice to write Mrs. Parks a letter to persuade her that the style you and your partner chose would be the best choice for our school.  You should  include a down-loaded picture of a garden from the site you visited along with at least three reasons with support that explain how this style of garden will benefit our school.  You may want to consider the following things:

1. Will your garden be easy or difficult to care for?
2. Will you need to plan a committee for caring for this garden style in the   summer?
3. Does your garden style fit with the style of the building? (Is it too fomal     or too casual?)

• Using the Clarisworks drawing tools, create a picture of the shape of your garden.  Make sure you include a scale (such as 1 inch on paper would be equal to 1 foot of actual garden space).  Label the length of each side.  Calculate the area and perimeter of the garden and put this information next to your garden design.  Save this to your disk!

• Visit the Nursery Catalog website and select no less than 4 types of plants for your garden.  Use the information given about each plant to determine how many of each plant you will need and the cost for all of your plants. (It may be easier to calculate a cost for each type of plant and then a total)  Use the chart to help you calculate your costs.

• Visit the Germinating Seeds website and follow the procedure to germinate either a flower or a vegetable seed (available from Mrs. Davis).  Your choice will be determined by the type of garden you choose.

• Use the presentation software of your choice to create a slide show.  The slide show should include your Clarisworks garden design, downloaded pictures of the plants you selected for your garden, information about the cost of the garden, and tips our class will need in order to care for the garden throughout the spring.  You should also include a picture of your germinated seed with information about how you started the seed and how you will transplant it into the garden.

You will be evaluated on each of these components: (click on each to link to the rubric)

• Your persuasive letter to Mrs. Parks
• Your calculation chart
• Your final presentation

Congratulations.  Now you are ready to design, plan, and start a school garden.
 
 

Visit the New York Botanical Garden to see several garden styles.

Visit a Vegetable Gardens

Visit a Butterfly Gardens
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Vegetable seeds and plants

 Children's Vegetable Garden Pack

Vegetable Seeds

Flower seeds and plants

Flower seeds
 
 
 
 
 
 

Use these additional sites to help you plan your garden:
Making garden stakes to identify the rows of plants in your garden will help you remember what each plant is.
Use these directions to make a Beanstalk House.
Use this page to help you plan a home garden.
Check out these gardening links.
Learn more about plants and our environment.
Learn more about vegetable gardening.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

These can be used throughout a unit on plants:
Tips for starting a school garden
Green Teacher magazine
Links to other school gardens in different climate zones
Ways to start seeds indoors
Links to kids gardening pages
More links to kids gardening pages
Kids gardening resources
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Your persuasive letter will be graded 2 times.  The first grade will based on the following content rubric:

The second grade will come from the following Writing to Persuade rubric:

4 - You have completed the chart with the names of at least 4 plants, entered the cost of each, the
      number you will need and the total cost, all calculated correctly.

3 - You have complete the chart with either 3 plants and correct calculations, or 4 plants with
      1 incorrect calculation.

2 - You have completed the chart with 2 or less plants or have multiple calculation mistakes.

1 - Your chart is incomplete.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Your final presentation will be graded on the following rubric:

4 - You