Remote Learning with Green Our Planet During COVID-19
We have exciting new programs and resources that are helping deliver programming during COVID-19. Our role is to help make a teacher’s job of teaching STEM, nutrition and conservation as effortless, efficient and impactful as possible!
Virtual Academy
We are continuing to create high-quality video lessons featuring our farmers, chefs, hydroponics experts and teachers, which are now located in our Virtual Academy. The lessons, which range from PreK to Grade 5, are all aligned to national and state standards and mirror the lessons from our STEMworks-accredited outdoor garden and hydroponics STEM curricula. Teaching STEM has never been so easy! New lessons are added to the Virtual Academy each week, so there’s always something new for your students to learn.
Farmer Program
Although students in Las Vegas aren’t currently able to attend school in-person, Green Our Planet’s farmers are hard at work teaching students online and making sure the gardens will be ready for the students’ return.
- Weekly Garden Visits: Farmers continue to visit school gardens once a week to maintain the gardens. If a school has opted to donate their produce to Delivering with Dignity (which helps distribute food to local families in need), farmers harvest and ensure the produce is donated.
- Garden Tour Videos—NEW! Farmers are regularly creating short garden tour videos in order to keep students connected to their school gardens.
- LIVE Q&A “Ask Your Farmer” Online Sessions—NEW! Farmers offer live Q&A sessions so students and teachers can stay connected with their school gardens and get their horticulture questions answered. Contact your coordinator or farmer for information on how to sign up!
Online Teacher Training
For the first time, Green Our Planet’s popular PDE STEM Teacher Trainings are available online! Our talented team of teachers, horticulturalists and hydroponics experts are offering a full slate of teacher trainings throughout the 2020-21 school year. Teachers can earn up to 1 PDE/5 CU credits for each training.
Online Nutrition Chef Program
Although our nutrition-chefs cannot visit schools for in-person cooking nutrition lessons, we are able to help teachers improve their students’ nutrition education by offering the following cooking nutrition lessons as well as through STEM nutrition/cooking lessons in our Virtual Academy:
On-Demand Cooking Nutrition Lessons: We have been busy filming our nutrition-chefs preparing tasty, nutritious recipes (with ingredients from the school gardens) while teaching nutrition through video lessons. These are currently available 24/7 in our Virtual Academy with new ones delivered regularly.
Live Virtual Cooking Nutrition Lessons: Our nutrition-chef team is available to perform live virtual cooking nutrition lessons for schools, which allow individual classrooms or entire grade levels to interact directly with our nutrition-chefs. For more information, contact your coordinator.
School Garden Coordinator Program
To support schools as they continue distance learning, Green Our Planet’s coordinators are continuing to meet with school garden teams online on a monthly basis. The coordinators assist schools with the various opportunities and resources that Green Our Planet offers and customize programming to suit the specific needs of schools.
Hydroponics STEM Program
Our rapidly-expanding K-5 STEM Hydroponics Program is now operating in ten states, from Alaska to Florida. Schools in the program continue to learn STEM and more with hands-on hydroponics activities, Virtual Academy video lessons, our K-5 STEM hydroponics curriculum and online hydroponics workshops and teacher trainings. With support, training and lessons from Green Our Planet, teachers and students are learning how to grow food hydroponically with six different kinds of hydroponic systems. The program takes the students on a journey from seed to harvest using progressively more complex growing systems.
