Growing Gardens & Oregon State University Present
The School Garden
Coordinator Certificate
Growing Gardens is proud to offer the School Garden Coordinator Certificate in partnership with Oregon State University. Join us to learn best practices for planning, building, and maintaining a thriving school garden in your own neighborhood.
By The End Of This Training, You Will...
Have the knowledge, skills and resources to Implement and maintain an edible school garden project built on a foundation of broad community involvement and support.
As a trained certified Garden Coordinator, you will be equipped to support long-lasting edible school/youth garden projects within the region and expand the capacity of the community to provide food garden-based education to children.
This training has a focus on elementary school/youth programs but can be adopted by those who work with middle or high-school-aged students.
This training is geared toward both those who have experience with school/youth gardens and those who are new to the field.
"Everyone was so professional yet personable. Definitely leaders and trailblazers in the movement."
2018 Program Participant
Introducing
The School Garden Coordinator Certificate
The School Garden Coordinator Certificate Training is now available online! Let us provide your A-Z action path complete with demo lessons, program templates, and tons of resources to help you start or further develop your own school garden.
Proven roadmap
Each week you will receive online video, audio, and print materials to walk you through the process step-by-step.
Weekly Q&As
Your weekly content is paired with an optional live discussion and Q&A hosted on Google Meet.
Private Community
You will be encouraged to share your activities with other participants in our private community discussion board.
Learn at Your Own Pace
Our pre-recoarded classes take about 1-2 hours to complete and you can watch them at your own pace.
Here's what you'll learn
Everything you need to develop
your own school garden
Module 1
Introduction & Action Planning
Connect to a larger community of like-minded school garden enthusiasts, learn about the national movement, and tap into the deeper mission of why you want to develop a school garden program. Presentations include the research-based Benefits of Farm to School and School Gardens, School Gardens in Oregon, and an introduction to creating your own School Garden Action Plan.
Module 2
Community Engagement
Understand the importance of broad community engagement and gain strategies to increase the involvement of diverse stakeholders in the school gardens. Three school garden coordinators share their real-life successes and challenges. Participants learn some tips on volunteer management and how to run a successful school garden volunteer work party.
Module 3
Garden Design & Maintenance
Gain the tools to create a well-thought-out garden design, maintenance plan, and planting plan that considers key elements of educational gardens. We take you on virtual tours of three school gardens to understand how the infrastructure influences the functions of the garden. We discuss school garden maintenance and how to plant a garden that works with the school calendar.
Module 4
Teaching & Curriculum
Be inspired to use the garden for teaching multiple subjects, as well as gain confidence in teaching a group of youth in the garden. Video demonstrations highlight outdoor classroom management strategies and adapting gardening techniques for youth. Then, you will be guided through selecting one of the existing curricula to use at your school.
Module 5
Harvesting & Tasting
Understand how products can be used in cafeterias and how to engage students in food-based activities. Video demonstrations show how to harvest and cook with students. The Farm to School Program Analyst from the Oregon Department of Education reviews food safety guidance and Nutrition Services staff share how best to coordinate to integrate garden produce into the cafeteria.
Module 6
Funding & Making Programs Last
Gain insights into the elements of long-term program sustainability and understand strategies to secure the financial resources to achieve long-lasting school garden programs.
Your Instructors
It Takes Teamwork
Growing Gardens welcomes guest speakers from Oregon State University, Oregon Department of Education, Portland Public Schools, Grow Portland, and FoodCorps to bring you truly dynamic and interactive content.
The course is hosted by Oregon State University’s Department of Professional and Community Education (PACE). At this time, the course does not provide graduate credits, however, educators can use the course certificate for 12 Professional Development Units.
2018 SGCCT Participant
“The most valuable parts were meeting professionals doing the same work at schools, getting new ideas for training facilitation, seeing awesome and diverse garden sites, and hearing from experts in the community.”
2018 SGCCT Participant
"This training reinforced to me that the school garden can be used as a tool for multiple and interdisciplinary functions (academics, food system, social & ecojustice) not one is more important than the other but can be woven together to become an extremely inclusive and dynamic learning/living space."
Are you ready to bring a new school garden to your community?
Our step-by-step online program will provide you with all the tools and resources you need. But you have to take the first step! Follow the button below to open enrollment.
