ChicagoBotanic Garden

Center for Teaching and Learning Strategic Plan Programming

The mission of the Center for Teaching and Learning ( (CTL) at the ChicagoBotanic Garden is to develop, deliver, and evaluate plant-based educational programs for teachers, school students, and youth from early childhood through early adulthood. Our programs engage learners of all ages and backgrounds through hands-on, interactive experiences with plant and environmental science, ecology, and nature. The long-term goal of the CTL is to deliver highly effective early childhood, youth, K-12, and teacher environmental education programs that will be recognized as an international model for proven best practices. This goal is reached through three areas of focus: Youth and Family Programs, Teacher and Student Programs, and Enrichment and Internship Programs.

1. Youth & Family Programs

Youth and family programs provide a variety of formal and informal nature-based programs that engage children ages 2-15 and their families in the exploration of the natural environment. Program areas include fee-based, drop-in and self-guided programming both on site at the garden and at regional and local festivals and events.

Fee-Based Programs

  • Camps at the Garden serve almost 1400 children ages 2-15 each summer and conservation, gardening, science, and arts options that engage youth with the natural world. Winter and Spring break camps offer opportunities for children ages 5-8 to engage in exciting indoor & outdoor high-quality learning activities during school vacations.
  • Boy and Girl Scouts badge programs offer activities to help troops earn scouting badges. Certified by the Northeast Illinois Council, the ChicagoBotanic Gardenprovides Boy Scout earned scouting patches in addition to our ChicagoBotanic Garden patch. Seasonal Scouts workshops focus on the changes that come each spring, summer, fall, and winter. Campouts offer low-stress, introductory camping experiences for youth groups and their leaders.
  • Club CBG afterschool program is a series of fun, hands-on educational afterschool programs for kids in grades 2 through 5. They meet once a week after school in three seasonal (winter, spring & fall) sessions.
  • Weekend Family Classesprovide hands-on opportunities for children ages 4 to 12 and adults to discover how nature and plants connect to our everyday lives via a variety of classes such as Wiggling Worms (learning about composting & sustainability) and Pizza Gardens (exploring plants we eat).
  • Little Diggers is a seven-class series for children ages 2 and 3 and their caregivers on select weekday mornings. It provides an introduction to nature and the Garden for toddlers and preschoolers through group and individual self-guided art, science, and early literacy activities.
  • Nature Nights are offered once a month, from June through October. Families with children ages 4-10 have the opportunity to picnic in the Children’s Garden followed by twilight exploration and discovery throughout the Garden. Themes will focus on areas such as McDonald Woods and Dixon Prairie.
  • Birthday Parties give children turning 5 and older a fun, educational opportunity to celebrate at the Garden. Parties are offered on weekends and topics include Plant Part Art, Beautiful Birds, and Gumballs & Superballs.

Drop-in Family Programs

  • Story Time takes place on Mondays January-April. Caregivers and children ages 5 and under gather at the Lenhardt Library, or outside weather permitting, to hear stories and participate in nature-based activities.(Not on website?)
  • Malott Japanese Garden Festivalstake place four times a year, and provide free opportunities for visitors to explore Japanese culture. Festivals introduce visitors to Japanese musical performances, storytelling, tea ceremony, and activities derived from traditional Japanese arts.The Malott Japanese Garden Family Sundays provide free hands-on activities related to Japanese Arts and culture twice a month throughout the summer.
  • Fruit & Vegetable Garden Family Drop Ins offer over 10,000 children of all ages the chance to get close to nature and discover where food comes from with fun, free activities each weekend from May through October. Children pollinate flowers, dissect seeds, see roots growing, compost with worms, create a rainbow for healthy eating, and more.
  • Holiday Drop-Ins celebrate Halloween and the end of the season of the ModelRailroadGarden and the winter holiday season. Members come in costume to trick-or-treat for small treasures and sweets throughout the garden. Drop in programs at Wonderland Express, the Garden’s holiday exhibit, offer a chance to explore more about plants and animals in winter. Children learn about birds, explore conifers, and discover the science behind snow and snowflakes.
  • Community Collaborative Programs connect the Garden’s visitors with local organizations, both on and off site. On site program collaborators include the National Council of Jewish Women, Chicago North Shore Chapter, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and the Winnetka Alliance for Early Childhood’s. The Garden also collaborates to provide nature-based activities at regional festivals and events including Chicago Wilderness – Leave no Child Inside, the Millennium Family Fun Tent in MillenniumPark, the Waukegan Public Library, the town of Barrington, and RaviniaPark.

Self Guided Family Programs

  • Seasonal Bingos provide opportunities for family visitors and 40,000 children to discover the Garden at their own pace and leisure.
  • PNC Grow Up Great Discovery Backpacks are filled with activities and tools to enhance visitors experiences as they walk through the Garden. These free seasonally relevant backpacks will be available for pickup at the Visitor Center Information Desk.

2. Teacher and Student Programs

Teacher and student programs offer exciting, innovative, standards-based educational experiences that leverage the Garden’s natural and scientific resources to provide school year and summer academic enrichment programs. Programs include teacher professional development, school field trips and in-school programming, environmental science curricula, and extracurricular school year programs, and citizen science.

  • Professional development programs provide graduate credit for teachers interested in incorporating plant based activities into the classroom. Classes continue to fill and the Garden has expanded collaborations with other regional museums. Four week long summer institutesprovide intensive summer training for teachers. They cover basic botany, school gardening, ecosystem studies, and native habitat restoration. Schools may also request Custom Teacher Workshops deliveredtheir site or at the Garden on a variety of topics. Finally, each year the Garden holds an Annual School Gardening Conference. In 2010 it will be held in collaboration with the American Horticultural Therapy Association’s annual conference Oct 13-17 2010.
  • School Programsinclude both on-site and off-site programming. Grades PreK-12 come to the Garden for Field Trip Programs arealigned with Illinois and national learning standards in ecology, botany, cultural uses of plants, and plants and animals. Museum Connections program provides in-school support for integrating gardening into ChicagoPublic School classrooms.
  • Curriculum Development efforts are grounded in brining and supporting the implementation ofhigh quality, relevant, standards aligned environmental science curriculum in schools. The SEEDS Curriculum implemented at St. Monica’s School (Student Environmental Education and Development Studies) incorporates all disciplines into environmentally focused projects that engage students in the exploration of real-world issues The Climate Change Education Project, funded by a $180,000 grant from NASA, combines a phenology-based citizen science initiative (Project BudBurst) with interactive communication and data analysis tools to create a project-based curriculum that uses student-collected data and NASA global climate and atmospheric data sets to teach about the impacts of climate change on the environment.
  • Fairchild Challenge, our competition based High School program engaged 56 schools from the 5-County Chicago area and served approximately 3500 students in the 2009-10 school year. In 2010-11 school year, the program will open to youth serving community organizations as well as high schools. The Garden collaborates with Botanic Garden Conservation International, Ravinia Festival, ColumbiaCollege, and Young Chicago Authors to provide students with environmentally focused creative experienced.
  • Citizen Scienceprovides a way to engage students and visitors in ongoing environmental science research. Project BudBurst ( a web-based national research project that uses phenological (plant life cycle) data collected by individuals, communities, and schools to make predictions about how climate change will affect plant biodiversity and population shifts. BudBurst gives community members a chance to contribute to actual scientific research, while learning about climate change and its impact on the environment. The Floral Report Card provides a companion controlled study to the less formal BudBurst program. Genetically identical “Climate change monitoring gardens”

provide a context for observing how identical species react in different climates. Researchers then use that data to make predictions about plant population shifts. In 2010 the Garden received a planning grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services to develop and implementation plan to bring the program to schools.(FRC website not up yet)

3. Enrichment and Internship Programs

Enrichment and Internship Programs are designed to provide teens and young adults with the opportunity to engage in intensive environmental science learning experiences during the school year and in the summer months. Participating youth are immersed in the environment they are learning about and engage in hands-on, academically rigorous, research experiences.

Summer Enrichment & Internships

  • Science First our on-site summer science program for middle school students serves 40 ChicagoPublic School students annually in an intensive 4 week program that introduces them to basic ecology and garden resources ( First, through a contract with the Lake County Forest Preserve District, is also offered at the GreenbeltCulturalCenter in Waukegan, IL. (
  • College First, our high school internship and college preparation programannually provides 16-20 Chicago Pubic School rising 11th and 12th graders with an 8-week environmental science practicum and internship opportunities with the Gardens research, horticulture and education staff. (
  • Science Careers Continuum connects College First and Science First with the Garden’s higher education programs and facilitates the entry of underrepresented populations into careers in environmental science by providing high quality, field-based summer science experience, formalized, multi-layer mentorship structure that creates a scientific community of practice, monthly school year meetings include the college application process and introduction to science careers, bi-annual tracking graduate tracking surveys and web-based communication and resource site using social networking technologies.
  • Stroger Internship Program is an early adulthood career discovery internship program for CookCounty residents ages 18-21. Interns are recruited and nominated by CookCounty commissioners, six interns are hired to work with a department of their choice to explore the variety of career opportunities at a non-profit museum

School Year Enrichment & Internships

  • Plant Science Research Apprenticeship Program for Teenagers: is a fee-based program that offers high school-aged students an opportunity to participate in ongoing research with ChicagoBotanic Garden scientists and graduate students. Participating students receive training on and have access to laboratory supplies and equipment including PCR, DNA electrophoresis, and tissue culture. Students design and implement their own experiments with the support of CBG researchers and graduate students.(not on web)
  • St. Martin de Porres High School Internship Program offers a team of four high school students, one from each grade level, work experience in a variety of environmental fields throughout the school year. In 2010 students worked in Research, Volunteers Services, and Center for Teaching and Learning (

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