Project Green Reach (PGR) is Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s (BBG) outreach program for K–8 teachers and their classes from Brooklyn’s Title I schools. PGR works with two cohorts of teachers and their classes every school year (fall and spring). Every spring PGR also holds a school-garden-based program for fourth- and fifth-grade classes, Garden Lab, and every other winter, PGR holds an Alumni Workshop for teachers who have participated in PGR before.
PROJECT GREEN REACH
Project Green Reach (PGR) is BBG’s semester-long outreach program for teachers and their classes from K–8 Title I (public and nonpublic) schools in Brooklyn.
What Students Receive
Guided tour of the Garden in small groups (buses provided by BBG)
In-classroom hands-on, inquiry-based science lesson provided by BBG staff
Plant for each student to care for and observe
Opportunity for students to share their botanical knowledge through a project that benefits their school’s immediate community (school, senior center, firehouse, etc.)
What Teachers Receive
In-class modeling of an inquiry-based science lesson by BBG staff
Plant supplies and staff support for each class to complete a community project
Teachers must apply for acceptance into PGR. Two teachers and their classes must apply from each school; however, both teachers do not have to teach the same grade level. The fee for this program is $200 total for both classes.
The application period for the fall semester (October–January) is every September and for the spring semester (February–May) is December through early January.
Spring 2025 applications open December 3. Application deadline: Friday, January 17, 2025
The fast-growing paperwhite narcissus is the perfect subject for scientific observation and data collection. Students can see these bulbs bloom within six weeks of being planted. Find out with your class why bulbs grow so fast!
We all love plants for their beautiful flowers, but what do flowers do for the plant? How do fruits form and why do they hide seeds inside? Students will explore, dissect, and plant fast-growing bean seeds in order to observe a complete life cycle in the classroom.
Do people eat plants? When you eat a carrot, what part of the plant are you eating? Students will observe, plant, and cultivate their own carrots as they answer these questions and learn about the different plant parts and their functions.
The desert environment is both harsh and fascinating. Students will discover some amazing adaptations plants have that allow them to survive the arid conditions and extreme temperatures of this environment. In class, students will dissect and pot up a desert succulent.
The tropical rainforest is home to an incredible diversity of plants. We will examine tropical plants up close to discover their particular niches within the rainforest environment. In class, students will each plant their own terrarium with a tropical plant they propagate themselves. Themes of biodiversity, adaptation, and plant-animal interdependence are introduced.
GARDEN LAB
PGR’s Garden Lab is a spring-semester program that brings inquiry-based science learning to public and nonpublic Title I schools with access to an outdoor, raised-based garden. We work with two fourth- or fifth-grade classes and their teachers per school every spring. Teachers who have already participated in Project Green Reach may apply to Garden Lab!
What Garden Lab Offers
Two 3-hour professional development teacher workshops at BBG
Three 2-hour in-classroom and in-garden lessons at your school
One 1-hour guided tour of BBG
A plant for each student, as well as classroom and school garden plants
What Teachers Commit To
Facilitating additional in-class plant science observations and investigations
Tending the garden with their classes (watering, weeding) from March through June
Sharing lessons and activities with peer teachers at a BBG workshop
Planning, organizing, and leading a harvest-day salad fest with their classes
Teachers must apply for acceptance into Garden Lab. Two teachers and their classes must apply from each school; however, both teachers do not have to teach the same grade level (e.g., one fourth- and one fifth-grade class). The fee for this program is $200 total for both classes.
Spring 2025 applications open December 3. Application deadline: Friday, January 17, 2025
PGR Alumni Workshops are open only to teachers who have already participated in Project Green Reach. These full-day professional development programs provide teachers with resources and materials to support a plant-inquiry unit. The PGR Teacher/Alumni Workshop is offered every other year.
SCIENCE STANDARDS CONNECTIONS
Project Green Reach and BBG’s classes for teachers and school groups support the Next Generation Science Standards that developed from the National Research Council’s 2012 Framework for K–12 Science Education. The framework calls for knowledge and practice to be intertwined so that students “actively engage in scientific and engineering practices and apply crosscutting concepts to deepen their understanding of the core ideas in these fields.” This approach aligns with BBG’s longstanding educational philosophy of learning by doing. Our educational programs are grounded in inquiry-based, hands-on experiences to encourage life-long learning about plants, science, and the environment.
Kindergarten
LS1.C Organization for Matter & Energy Flow in Organisms
All animals need food in order to live and grow. They obtain their food from plants or from other animals. Plants need water & light to live and grow.
ESS2.D Weather and Climate
Weather is the combination of sunlight, wind, snow or rain, and temperature in a particular region at a particular time. People measure these conditions to describe and record the weather and to notice patterns over time.
ESS3.A Natural Resources
Living things need water, air, and resources from the land, and they live in places that have the things they need.
Grade 1
LS1.A Structure & Function
All organisms have external parts. Plants also have different parts (roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits) that help them survive and grow.
LS1.B Growth & Development of Organisms
Adult plants & animals can have young.
LS1.D Information Processing
Animals have body parts that capture and convey different kinds of information needed for growth and survival. Animals respond to these inputs with behaviors that help them survive. Plants also respond to some external inputs.
LS3.A Inheritance of Traits
Young animals are very much, but not exactly, like their parents. Plants also are very much, but not exactly, like their parents.
LS3.B Variation of Traits
Individuals of the same kind of plant or animal are recognizable as similar but can also vary in many ways.
Grade 2
LS2.A Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems
Plants depend on water, light, and air to grow.
Animals depend on plants or other animals for food.
LS4.D Biodiversity & Humans
There are many different kinds of living things in any area, and they exist in different places on land and in water.
ESS2.B Plate Tectonics and Large-Scale System Interactions
Maps show where things are located. One can map the shapes and kinds of land and water in any area.
Grade 3
LS4.B Natural Selection
Sometimes the differences in characteristics between individuals of the same species provide advantages in surviving, finding males, and reproducing.
LS3.A Inheritance of Traits
Many characteristics of organisms are inherited from their parents.
Other characteristics result from individuals’ interactions with the environment, which can range from diet to learning.
Some characteristics result from the interactions of both inheritance and the effect of the environment.
LS3.B Variation of Traits
Different organisms vary in how they look and function because they have different inherited information.
The environment also affects the traits that an organism develops.
LS3.C Adaptation
For any particular environment, some kinds of organisms survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
ESS2.D Weather and Climate
Climate describes a range of an area’s typical weather conditions and the extent to which those conditions vary over years.
Grade 4
LS1.A Structure and Function
Plants and animals have both internal and external structures that serve various functions in growth, survival, behavior, and reproduction.
Grade 5
LS1.C Organization for Matter and Energy Flow in Organisms
Plants acquire their material for growth chiefly from air and water.
LS2.A Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems
Organisms can survive only in environments in which their particular needs are met. A healthy ecosystem is one in which multiple species of different types are each able to meet their needs in a relatively stable web of life.
PS3.D Energy in Chemical Processes and Everyday Life
The energy released from food was once energy from the sun that was captured by plants in the chemical process that forms plant matter (from air and water).
Grades 6–8
LS1.B Growth & Development of Organisms
Genetic factors as well as local conditions affect the growth of the adult plant.
LS2.A Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems
Organisms can survive only in environments in which their particular needs are met. A healthy ecosystem is one in which multiple species of different types are each able to meet their needs in a relatively stable web of life.
In any ecosystem, organisms and populations with similar requirements for food, water, oxygen, or other resources may compete with each other limited resources, access to which consequently constrains their growth & reproduction.
Growth of organisms & population increases are limited by access to resources.
LS4.B Natural Selection
Natural selection leads to the predominance of certain traits in a population, and the suppression of others.
Adaptation by natural selection acting over generations is one important process by which species change over time in response to changes in environmental conditions. Traits that support successful survival and reproduction in the next environment become more common; those that do not become less common. Thus, the distribution of traits in a population changes.
Kindergarten
LS1.C Organization for Matter & Energy Flow in Organisms
All animals need food in order to live and grow. They obtain their food from plants or from other animals. Plants need water & light to live and grow.
Grade 1
LS1.A Structure & Function
All organisms have external parts. Plants also have different parts (roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits) that help them survive and grow.
Grade 2
LS2.A Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems
Plants depend on water, light, and air to grow.
Animals depend on plants or other animals for food.
Grade 3
LS3.A Inheritance of Traits
Many characteristics of organisms are inherited from their parents.
Grade 4
LS1.A Structure and Function
Plants and animals have both internal and external structures that serve various functions in growth, survival, behavior, and reproduction.
Grade 5
LS1.C Organization for Matter and Energy Flow in Organisms
Plants acquire their material for growth chiefly from air and water.
PS3.D Energy in Chemical Processes and Everyday Life
The energy released from food was once energy from the sun that was captured by plants in the chemical process that forms plant matter (from air and water).
Grades 6–8
LS1.B Growth & Development of Organisms
Organisms reproduce, either sexually, or asexually, and transfer their genetic information to their offspring.
Genetic factors as well as local conditions affect the growth of the adult plant.
LS1.C Organization for Matter and Energy Flow in Organisms
Plants, algae (including phytoplankton), and many microorganisms use the energy from light to make sugars (food) from carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and water through the process of photosynthesis, which also releases oxygen. These sugars can be used immediately or stored for growth for later use.
LS1.D Information Processing
Plants respond to stimuli such as gravity (geotropism) and light (phototropism).
Kindergarten
LS1.C Organization for Matter & Energy Flow in Organisms
All animals need food in order to live & grow. They obtain their food from plants or from other animals. Plants need water & light to live and grow.
ESS3.A Natural Resources
Living things need water, air, & resources from the land, and they live in places that have the things they need.
Grade 1
LS1.A Structure & Function
All organisms have external parts. Plants also have different parts (roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits) that help them survive and grow.
LS1.B Growth & Development of Organisms
Adult plants and animals can have young.
LS3.A Inheritance of Traits
Young animals are very much, but not exactly, like their parents. Plants also are very much, but not exactly, like their parents.
LS3.B Variation of Traits
Individuals of the same kind of plant or animal are recognizable as similar but can also very in many ways.
Grade 2
LS2.A Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems
Plants depend on water, light, and air to grow.
Plants depend on animals for pollination or to move their seeds around.
LS4.D Biodiversity & Humans
There are many different kinds of living things in any area, and they exist in different places on land and in water.
Grade 3
LS1.B Growth & Development of Organisms
Reproduction is essential to the continued existence of every kind of organism. Plants and animals have unique and diverse life cycles.
LS3.A Inheritance of Traits
Many characteristics of organisms are inherited from their parents.
LS3.B Variation of Traits
Different organisms vary in how they look and function because they have different inherited information.
LS4.B Natural Selection
Sometimes the differences in characteristics between individuals of the same species provide advantages in surviving, finding males, and reproducing.
Grade 4
LS1.A Structure and Function
Plants and animals have both internal and external structures that serve various functions in growth, survival, behavior, and reproduction.
Grade 5
LS1.C Organization for Matter and Energy Flow in Organisms
Plants acquire their material for growth chiefly from air and water.
PS3.D Energy in Chemical Processes and Everyday Life
The energy released from food was once energy from the sun that was captured by plants in the chemical process that forms plant matter (from air and water).
Grades 6–8
LS1.B Growth & Development of Organisms
Organisms reproduce, either sexually or asexually, and transfer their genetic information to their offspring.
Genetic factors as well as local conditions affect the growth of the adult plant.
LS1.C Organization for Matter and Energy Flow in Organisms
Plants, algae (including phytoplankton), and many microorganisms use the energy from light to make sugars (food) from carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and water through the process of photosynthesis, which also releases oxygen. These sugars can be used immediately or stored for growth for later use.
LS1.D Information Processing
Plants respond to stimuli such as gravity (geotropism) and light (phototropism).
Grade 4
LS1.A Structure and Function
Plants and animals have both internal and external structures that serve various functions in growth, survival, behavior, and reproduction.
Grade 5
LS1.C Organization for Matter and Energy Flow in Organisms
Plants acquire their material for growth chiefly from air and water.
PS3.D Energy in Chemical Processes and Everyday Life
The energy released from food was once energy from the sun that was captured by plants in the chemical process that forms plant matter (from air and water).
Support
Major Supporter
Additional Support
William C. Bullitt Foundation
Green Charitable Foundation
Sarah B. Weir and Family
Ronald J. Weiss and Catherine W. Weiss
