Schoolyard Rain Garden Essentials
Provided by: Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner’s Office|Published on: November 14, 2024
Grades: 3, 4, 5
Type: Activity - Outdoors
Subjects: Science
Authors: Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner’s Office
Region: Michigan
Languages: English
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Learn about our review process →
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Learn about our review process →
Synopsis
- This guide for building a schoolyard rain garden in Michigan includes planning and designing information, a native plant guide, lessons to teach students about rain gardens, and instructions for designing, planting, and maintaining the garden.
- In the lessons, 2nd-6th grade students will play a game to model the water cycle and how rain gardens and contaminants can influence it, design a rain garden, and create rain garden fact sheets to post around the school.
Teaching Materials
Positives
- The timeline and checklist are helpful tools for implementing this resource.
- Building and planting a rain garden provides many opportunities for hands-on student and community engagement.
Prerequisites
- Implementing a rain garden will require the teacher to plan, measure, recruit 20-30 adult volunteers, and attain funding for the project.
- It may benefit students to know how stormwater runoff impacts the environment.
- To teach some of the lessons, teachers will need the book, The Puddle Garden, by Jared Rosenbaum and the comic strip, Teenage Raindrop, by David Zinn.
Differentiation & Implementation
- To make math connections, teachers can include advanced or older students in the planning and measuring process for the garden.
- After designing their rain garden in the second lesson, students can write short persuasive speeches to convince others that their design is the best.
- To practice summarization, students can read the materials for building a rain garden and create guides for how to build. Teachers can make copies of the best guides to give to the volunteers.
- Before selecting plants for the garden, teachers can lead students in an investigation to determine why native plants are the best choice for a rain garden and which native plants are best suited for the conditions in their garden.
- Teachers can use the invasive weeds guide to talk about invasive species in general and how climate change is impacting invasive and native species.
This thorough guide to constructing a schoolyard rain garden features step-by-step instructions for planning, building, and maintenance. Three lesson plans are also included. This resource doesn’t mention climate change, though it could serve as segue to discussion of rain gardens’ impact on the urban heat island or their potential for carbon sequestration. This resource is recommended for teaching.
Teaching Tips
Standards
Resource Type and Format
Scientist Reviewed
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Our review process ensures that every resource in our library reflects the current state of climate science.
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