Los Altos School District Living Classroom Program, from Los Altos, CA, has been selected as one of ten finalists for the Green Heroes grant program and could win $10,000 from the makers of Green WorksTM Natural Cleaners. The top five entries, selected by consumers, will be named the Green Heroes grant recipients. Consumers are invited to log onto
www.greenworkscleaners.com/greenhero
until April 10th, to vote for their favorite entry.
Program Description:
The Los Altos School District Living Classroom Program provides Garden Based, Hands-On Science Using School Gardens and Living Things to teach science and math. The Living Classroom Program offers a wide range of volunteer docent led, State Standard aligned lessons in science, math and social studies using outdoor school gardens and living things to make the learning relevant and real world. The program has helped establish educational gardens in four schools thus far which include California Native Plant habitat gardens for the study of ecology and life science, edible gardens for growing and harvesting food,and experimental gardens for long-term science experiments and math lessons. The gardens also provide important outdoor creative play areas for students to have more contact with nature (as opposed to blacktop) during recess time. All K-3 lessons offered this year were piloted last year and we are currently piloting grade 4-6 lessons. The lessons not only provide a superior teaching method, they also help instill an awareness and appreciation of the natural world and our local environment. The Program will have delivered over 110 lessons by the end of this school year (55 lessons to date) at four schools. Our goal is to expand to all 7 elementary schools in grades K-6 next year to serve close to 3,500 students.
Tags: district, finalist, green heroes, los altos, school