Earth Day - Call to Action

What Can Your Group Do to Make a Difference this Month?

feature story photo

Junior Master Gardeners are being challenged to help "green our world" on Earth Day, April 22, 2010! The Green Education Foundation (GEF) is a non profit organization that provides environmental educational resources to schools and youth groups. GEF has partnered with the Earth Day Network to launch a global day of service to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. The National Junior Master Gardener program is encouraging Junior Master Gardeners to join the effort - sign up for the Green Thumb Challenge, and help plant 10,000 youth gardens in 2010!

Whether preparing a plot, starting seeds, or jumpstarting a large garden project, your group can take part in this exciting campaign. This project could also be a part of the community service component for Junior Master Gardener Certification!

All participants receive a coupon for a $10 off a $50 purchase at Lowe's, as well as free access to the GEF online community - an expansive global social network dedicated to environmental education. The community also features garden supply contests, courtesy of GEF sponsors - over $10,000 of raffle prizes have already been awarded to Green Thumb Challenge participants!

10,000 gardens planted for Earth Day 2010 signifies a commitment to the benefits of gardening with youth. The Green Thumb Challenge shares a common mission with the Junior Master Gardener Association, aiming to meet the following objectives:

  • Connect kids with nature
  • Address childhood obesity by promoting message of health and nutrition
  • Provide service-learning opportunities, with particular attention to childhood hunger in America

JMG encourages you to sign up today! Here's how to participate:

Sign up at www.Gardens4EarthDay.org before Earth Day, and you will automatically be entered into a raffle for a garden start-up kit, courtesy of program sponsors! (Prize value: $500). You will also receive your Lowe's coupon via email this spring.

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National JMG Group of the Month!

Middle Gate Greenthumbs

The Middle Gate Greenthumbs is a JMG group of 2nd - 4th grade students that meet after school and focus on specific units of study each lasting several weeks. The group is led and supported through the school's PTA and other volunteers and has registered twenty-eight students to participate in the program. The children are have explored the Health & Nutrition from the Garden and Wildlife Gardener JMG curricula and have earned their own certifications. Despite the rainy weather during two of our classes, the children have planted lettuce, scallions, chives, pansies, nasturtiums and broccoli in our raised planters and beans in our teepee garden. The children have also begun to plant annuals and perennials in our Butterfly/Hummingbird garden. Laura King, the Greenthumbs group leader exclaims, "We can't wait to welcome our beautiful winged friends to Middle Gate." King tells us, "The Garden Club would not be successful without the contributions of so many. Our very own Mr. Dennis Petty, Head Custodian, created a web page of our outdoor classroom gardens progress since the beginning of this program." The campus has an outdoor garden space consisting of raised planter beds, a patio and a newly planted butterfly/hummingbird garden and a new tee/pee garden. The children and adult volunteers planted the new gardens as a service project to the school for it's use by all, as well as cleaned up all existing beds around the school." "We are looking forward to another successful program and are hopefully going to adopt the 'Literature from the Garden' mini-series for the school's Reading Specialist to utilize during the school year."

"Paper or Plastic?"

How do you answer that question? If you chose plastic you are like most people. Choosing paper or plastic may not be the most important question your will ever answer; what you do with the bag is important to our environment.

grocery bags
Try this simple challege to see how many uses you can get from a little plastic bag.

Garden Library

book review:

book review.

Mother Earth and Her Children

by Sibylle von Olfers & Sieglinde Schoen Smith

As Spring approaches, Mother Earth wakes her sleepy children. Deep below the earth, the children yawn and stretch. Soon their hands are busy, stitching new clothes in bright Spring colors. They dust off the bumblebees, scrub the beetles, paint splendid new coats on the ladybugs, and rouse the caterpillars from their cocoons. The children jubilantly emerge from the earth, where they become flowers of Spring. All summer long, they play in the woods and meadows.

As Autumn leaves fall, the wind rushes the children back to Mother Earth, bringing tired bugs and beetles with them to the safety of their Winter home.

In rhyming verse and vibrant illustrations, this entrancing story touches on such themes as rejuvenation and the passing of the seasons, helping young children understand the circle of life.

Mother Earth and Her Children is a Growing Good Kids Book Awards winner. For more information about Growing Good Kids Book Awards, click here.

Literature in the Garden
For more information on good books to connect to gardening, check out the award-winning JMG curriculum, Literature in the Garden

This Month's Garden Treat...

a Growums™ garden kit!

the gumdrop tree

Each month we'll select a few registered JMG groups and a JMG News subscriber to receive a free, cool item. Congrats to:

  • Middle Gate Greenthumbs
    Newton, CT
  • Castlen Elementary JMG
    Grand Bay, AL
  • Rockford Worker Bees
    Rockford, TN
  • Boone Grove 3rd Grade JMG
    Valparaiso, IN
  • and JMG Kids Garden News Subscriber, Sherie "smcsha"
    in Texas
money worm

    >> Growums is a new and green fundraising opportunity being offered through the Junior Master Gardener program next fall. If your campus is interested in generating some revenue for your school gardening while serving as a pilot for this Growums Fundraiser during the spring months of April/May, click here

Grant Watch

money worm
dragonfly writing

wanted: kid writers!

Has your groups started planting your spring garden? Did anything funny happen? Do you have any tips on how to plant or on growing plants? We'll include JMGers writings in newsletters over the next few months. If we include your student's work, we'll send you a free gift! Send submissions to programinfo@jmgkids.us.

What vegetable can you use to fly a kite?

string beans