Educating The Youth of Today About The Environment of Tomorrow

GUELPH, ON (April, 2016) — Children are naturally curious. They learn by doing, and love to create new things and get dirty.

Learning about nature and participating in hands-on activities such as gardening has proven to develop new skills such as responsibility, self-confidence, teamwork, and understanding, while establishing appreciating for nature and providing physical activity.

“Gardening gives children a chance to learn necessary life skills that are often overlooked in standard school curriculums,” says Dejan Kristan, Marketing Director at PickOntario. “It is important to build on children’s natural curiosity by incorporating nature, the environment and floriculture into their daily lives.”

PickOntario created ‘Curriculum Connections’, a list of educational resources developed to teach the youth of today. These are available for all educators to engage their students and children with new and exciting content.

Here are the various grade levels of flora education available:

· Grade 1 Module (For Children 6 Years old): In this module students will learn about their local environment and the methods associated with scientific analysis. This unit will get children in tune with the environment, its characteristics, needs and issues while learning how to grow plants in the classroom, recognize greenhouses, and build a garden.

· Grade 3 Module (For Children 8 Years old): This curriculum offers opportunities to study plants—the area of soil in the environment and the area of growth and changes in plants. This unite examines the nature of plants and the importance of plans as sources of oxygen, food, and shelter, and the need for humans to protect plants and their habitats.

· Grade 5 Module (For Children 10 Years old): This series of lessons deals with greenhouses as structures. It promotes student knowledge and understanding about greenhouses and the development of similar structures in different locations on Earth and on Mars.

· Grade 6 Module (For Children 11 Years old): Students will learn about the technological advances related to the study, discovery and travel in places outside of Earth. At this age students seem to be inherently interested in everything “space oriented”—proving this to be a fascinating unit. This science and technology program also offers opportunities for a variety of career exploration activities.

“Gardening is a great way to teach children to be environmentally conscious by exploring the way nature works,” adds Dejan. “People of all ages can enjoy gardening and learning about flowers and plants, but children in particular will gain life-changing skills while having lots of fun.”

Please be aware this educational content is free and can be used by anyone.

For more information on PickOntario’s ‘Curriculum Connections’, please visit www.po.flowerscanadagrowers.com/resources. Follow @pickOntario on Twitter and Instagram, and like them on Facebook.