2 Jan 2008
As the new year dawns, why not make a commitment to yourself, your children and wildlife and plant a wildlife garden at home or at your child's school or daycare center?
A container garden on an urban rooftop. A butterfly garden in your backyard. A plot at a community garden or a thriving bog garden behind the day care center. A wildlife habitat garden can be anything you and your kids dare to dream, as long as it provides the four basic elements of habitat: food, water, cover and places to raise young.
Utilizing a wildlife habitat as an outdoor classroom makes learning more real, fun, and relevant. Habitat areas provide teachers of all subject areas with unique, hands-on opportunities for meeting and exceeding standards of learning requirements that cannot be duplicated in the traditional indoor classroom setting. Students need more than books, worksheets and carefully contrived experiments; they need hands-on experience in a dynamic setting that illustrates to them the "real world" context of their education.
At home, a habitat garden can enhance your landscape and provide an area for endless discovery and play, and can attract local and migratory wildlife for you and your family to enjoy. It's a perfect place to read, relax and get your Green Hour every day!
For information on how to do this exciting project at home, or at your child's school or daycare center, visit: http://www.nwf.org/gardenforwildlife.
