Education

My favorite kinds of plants are fruit trees, because I want to try to plant a fruit tree and then gather the fruits, just like in China, when my grandma and I will collect the peaches that fall from the tree…
~3rd grader, PS 22Q

Photo: Teri Bloom
QBG is a leader in botanical and environmental education, serving area schoolchildren and educators for more than 35 years. Students enjoy hands-on experiences, winding through such collections as the Bee Garden, with its live observation hives showcasing honeybees at work; the Herb Garden, where they marvel at the delight of a familiar fragrance, learn about plant parts, and later create a sachet to take home; and the Woodland Garden, where they discover an entire new world in the leaf litter while learning a valuable lesson about nature’s way of recycling.

QBG’s Environmental Tours and Workshops encourage inquiry and are based on science curriculum, satisfying National and New York State Science Standards and helping teachers to meet New York City Performance Standards. The workshops and tours address interdependence, plant and animal adaptations, biomes and plant communities, as well as special seasonal and academic subjects such as Color Me Autumn, Dr. George Washington Carver, and Plants in the Lives of the First Americans.

We’re pleased to announce new curriculum for middle-school students. Round and Round It Goes is QBG’s first wave of new curriculum featuring the ecological services provided in the Garden’s new Visitor & Administration Building and associated landscapes. Round and Round focuses on the vital importance of water and how environmental systems—whether man-made or natural—provide ecological and economic services that clean water and slow down and absorb storm water. This three-part program is unique and offers direct hands-on experiences within the new building and landscapes.

Stormwater management and water recycling, as perceived by students from PS/IS 499Q, Queens College School for Math, Science, and Technology.
Our Education Department is committed to serving as a resource for area schoolteachers. Staff is available on a limited basis to provide inquiry-based workshops tailored to professional development goals. QBG is a partner in the Urban Advantage program, bringing the world of life-science investigations to middle-school science teachers in support of the 8th Grade Science Exit Project. We also offer NYC Teacher Wormshop: Worm Composting for the Classroom, which qualifies participants for three new teacher training credits.

For those extra-enthusiastic independent teachers or those running on a smaller budget, we suggest renting our Tree Exploration Discovery Kit, an education tool to be used in the Garden. The Tree Kit includes a set of lesson plans with engaging educational activities that introduce your students to trees as living organisms, important parts of our ecosystem and environment as well as major contributors to the quality of our daily life. The kit also includes apparatus such as binoculars, field guides, clinometers, and stethoscopes as well as Queens Botanical Garden Tree Trail guides that take you and your students on a journey through tree identification. Each student also receives a personal tool-kit to aid in individual exploration and a specimen collection.

At the moment we are developing Discovery Kits on other topics. Watch for the Weird World of Decomposers, coming soon!

QBG also offers guided tours for all ages, environmental citizenship workshops for scout troops and youth groups, summer internships for high school students, compost workshops for your community, and much more. Explore the links at left, and see our current education brochure for additional information.

We look forward to welcoming your class to the Queens Botanical Garden!