Teachers Going Green curriculum is here!

Martha McCormick on November 14, 2024

Last month Ashley M and I enjoyed a lunch meeting at the Trellis Cafe at the Des Moines Botanical Garden with Stephanie Harrington, Natural Resources Program Coordinator with ISU Extension, Polk County. Stephanie trains ISU Master Gardeners to work with school gardens. She does lots of other stuff as well.

She’s been looking for the Teachers Going Green curriculum for a couple years. And she’s had requests from teachers. The lessons haven’t been available for several years, but NOW THEY ARE!

And they are even better than they were before. Ashley updated them to a format similar to the lessons Sara developed for Waukee Schools a couple years ago. Those lessons empower teachers to use their extensive school gardens to teach the science curriculum.

Kids can learn science concepts experientially, while they’re getting outdoors, and learning about healthy food.

Since we developed the first Teachers Going Green lessons in 2009, the Iowa Core was changed to become the Iowa Academic Standards. Ashley combed through the standards and existing lessons to make sure they align.

She also reviewed and evaluated the lessons we’re now making available to you, for quality and clarity. We’re proud to say they come up to the standards you’ve come to expect from Next Step Adventure.

Eating Asparagus

Teachers Going Green lessons for Kindergarten through 5th Grade are available for you to download HERE, free of charge. They are organized by the subject their Academic Standards align with–

  • 21st Century Skills
  • English Language Arts (ELA)
  • Math
  • Science
  • Social Studies

We’re excited to offer this new resource to you for your classrooms and other programs. Please take the opportunity to share it with your colleagues and friends. And let us know how you’re using it, and how it works.

Celebrate the Farm to School Movement

Martha McCormick on October 10, 2024

Kids and dirt go together, well like dirt on kids. These two kiddos are collecting roly polies in our raised bed garden. June has worked these beds since before she was one, but now she’s six, and her interest in gardening is overshadowed by dance, first grade, and playing pretend. Still, yesterday, she picked a Jimmy Nardello pepper and ate it all up. When kids grow their own food, they’ll eat it!

Making a Pill Bug Zoo in the garden

This is our very October garden with compost cage, volunteer pumpkin and squash. We still have potatoes and carrots to harvest. But our garden is only my personal part of Next Step’s contribution to the Farm to School movement. And the movement has really picked up steam in Iowa over the last several years. Next Step developed Teachers Going Green beginning in 2009 to help teachers connect gardening with the Iowa Academic Standards.

Since then we’ve worked with local schools in Des Moines, Waukee and Iowa City to name a few. Our focus is on the education–We developed School Garden 101, also for Keep Iowa Beautiful. We plan to make the Teachers Going Green lessons available on our website in the near future, with some updates to reflect changes to the Education Standards.

Sara Lockie and the rest of the team train teachers and other youth professionals to work with kids in the garden. One important thing to remember is that it’s not about the plants. It’s about the kids.

But we’ve branched out from developing activities and lessons to coordinating Iowa State University’s Farm to School & Early Child Care coalition statewide. These efforts will expand the Farm to School movement far beyond the reach of Next Step Adventure alone. This year they’ve set goals to develop resources and better access to already existing curriculum.

So join us in celebrating Farm to School month by listening to this podcast from the National Center for Appropriate Technology, imagining how YOU can help connect with local food, and have fun doing it.

Eating Asparagus
Eating Asparagus
June and Hazel on the mulch pile at Sprouts Garden, Drake University
Sprouts Garden
Building a worm composting bin at Food Corps training at ISU Extension
Compost with Worms
October garden
Seedlings started indoors
Seedlings started indoors
Bean plants in a clear cup. Roots can be viewed through the cup.
Bean plants in a clear cup. Roots can be viewed through the cup.
Deep Roots Garden Sign
Community garden
Food Corps garden training at ISU Extension
Garden training
Food Corps garden training at ISU Extension
Teachers + Dirt = Fun
Making a Pill Bug Zoo in the garden
Roly Poly Daycare
Planting early veggies in our raised beds
Watering the seeds
Daren Leading Name Wave
Earth Hero Daren Leading Name Wave
World of Difference Girls
World of Difference Girls
Preparing guacamole
Guacamole
Practical Farmers Retreat at the end of the Mergers challenge
Practical Farmers Team Building Day

Storytelling with Drake Students

Ashley Kirvin on January 19, 2023

Martha and I bundled up on a very snowy morning in early January, and drove to the Hotel Pattee in Perry Iowa. Lopso, the resident dog greeted us warmly at the back door. His name complements the fact that he had three legs, making him lopsided. He became a caring presence to us and the students. Lopso wandered in and out of our session, and paused only for his hotdog lunch.

Carol Spaulding-Kruse had asked us to facilitate three hours of yoga with Drake students during a J-Term class, focusing on the intersection of yoga and writing. We focused our session on Hanuman, the monkey-faced god of the Hindu myths. Even though Hanuman’s story is centuries old, its lessons are still relevant today. The Ramayana is one of India’s most popular myths. In it Ram asks Hanuman to complete several difficult and challenging tasks, that he believes are impossible. Each and every time, Hanuman tells himself that he cannot accomplish such enormous tasks, and yet, he always does. He’s been telling himself a story that simply wasn’t true.

Lopso the three-legged dog at Hotel Pattee
Sweet Lopso approved our message, however he stood firm that he could not skip his hotdog lunch.

As we told Hanuman’s story, we asked the students to consider the stories they tell themselves. Martha and I urged them to note which stories are true, and which are not. Sometimes in our minds, we tell ourselves stories like, “I’m not funny” or, “I’m too shy.” Because the stories aren’t always true, necessary, or helpful, they limit our capacity to experience our full humanity. We told the Drake students some stories we’ve told ourselves, and how they’ve not always been helpful, true, or necessary.

Yoga asks us to occupy space, to relish in the full capacity of our humanity. Hanuman reminds us we can do hard–even impossible–things, even when we’ve been telling ourselves we can’t.

Covid–What Can We Do?

Martha McCormick on August 28, 2021

…a sense of belonging is one of the most essential needs of humans. We also need to feel power over our lives, belief in our own abilities and a sense of generosity. Seems to me Covid has challenged our ability to satisfy all of those needs.

Remember Evelyn Davis?

Martha McCormick on February 20, 2013

I started working in Des Moines in 1980 when I was fresh out of graduate school. Iowa State University Extension hired two urban 4-H professionals to fill one position. The Polk County Extension Director’s reaction was not warm. “There’s no such thing as a free puppy” was his frequent response to our requests.

Extension negotiated with Evelyn Davis for free rent in exchange for free programming with the families, kids and staff at Tiny Tots, and we moved into an old classroom on the second floor of the old Nash Irving Middle School, then the home of Evelyn Davis’ Tiny Tots Center. It was a cold day in February 1980, and Horticulture Specialist Mohammad Khan took us on a breakneck tour through the “hood” in his tiny Nissan. Things have improved a lot since then. Hofmaster and I learned our way around the city by being lost a good deal of the time.

Evelyn Davis’ work continues through the Evelyn K. Davis Center for Working Families. The Center houses Gateway to College and other programs for individuals and families that struggle to make ends meet, much less get ahead. Ms. Davis was a force of nature that impacted me personally as well as professionally.

I felt my baby’s first kick in the hallway at Tiny Tots waiting out a tornado warning. When I brought Kate to the center a month or so after she was born, Ms. Davis took my crying child from Charlene Owens’ arms and she quieted and settled against that warm caring heart immediately.

Ms. Davis helped our nutrition education programs connect with other organizations in the community, and let us hone our teaching skills on her staff and clients. Our joint efforts brought additional ISU staff to the community to work with parenting skills, nutrition education and advise on home improvement. We turned those three classrooms into a real inner city Extension Office that impacted the community for four years.

Now the site of the old Tiny Tots Center is Evelyn Davis Park where we held our first 4-H Portable Challenge Training. We brought Sam Tower in from Washington State University to spend a week with 12 professionals from Extension, Des Moines Schools and Employee and Family Resources. Those five days began the adventure movement in the Des Moines area. That fall we created a physical education class for kids who were at risk of dropping out of high school because they were failing PE. Soon we added afterschool and summer programs, and finally corporate training and work with adult students.

Ten years later we started the Adventure Learning Center with Living History Farms and Polk County Conservation, still the premier course in Iowa. And that’s where I learned to climb poles. But that’s another story!

Find Refuge

Martha McCormick on October 18, 2009

I just applied to make my yard a certified wildlife habitat. I figured I might as well, since the deer have plucked my rosebuds one by one this summer and fall. Really, it’s a small step toward taking better care of the outdoors.

I started the process about three years ago when a group of friends and I removed an extensive pool, deck and pond structure and opened the space to nature. The huge Pin Oak that anchors the space has flourished since then, putting out new growth. I’ve added a perennial border of native plants and shrubs, allowed redbuds, oaks and maples to grow where they will. I’ve composted for a while, raised a bit of food and most recently installed a rain garden with the help of my friend Anne, the Iowa Garden Coach.

It’s really turned the back yard into a refuge, not just for the critters, but for me and my friends. I hope you’ll take some actions to make the world a little greener; here are some suggestions–

  • Take this “Outdoor Bill of Rights” Survey to help the Iowa Department of Natural Resources develop their agenda for getting children and youth opportunities to spend time outdoors.
  • Parents–Check out “Be Out There” at the National Wildlife Federation’s Web site, especially the resources for taking kids outside including Why kids need to play outside
  • The Next Step team was involved in creating this online resource for exploring Iowa–99 Parks Family Fun Guide
  • See what it would take to create a wildlife refuge at your school.

Map the Community

Martha McCormick on June 29, 2009

A map is a special kind of picture of a community or area; there are landmarks that make each community unique. Each team will draw, photograph, take notes and collect things that can be glued to the map-page. At the end of the walk, print photos and add items from the walk to the map-pages.