The Growing Greener School Grounds Conference:

 

The San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance hosted its 3rd Growing Greener School Grounds Conference on October 10th and 11th, 2008!

Thank you to all who participated!

We hope that you took some valuable skills with you back to your schools. We also hope to make available some of the resources that were shared in particular workshops, soon.

Be sure to checkout Richard Louv's website (our keynote speaker for the conference). He is the author of Last Child in the Woods: saving our children from nature-deficit disorder.

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The San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance hosted the third Growing Greener School Grounds Conference, a workshop-style event that brought together over 300 teachers and community members from all over the San Francisco Bay Area to learn more about creating, using, and sustaining ecological schoolyards. Building on our two previous successful conferences, held in October 2002 and 2004, the October 2008 conference aimed to give participants the opportunity to learn ecology-related curricula, construction, and gardening techniques while simultaneously improving the grounds of the schools hosting the workshops. The conference took place Friday, October 10th (evening) and Saturday, October 11th (all day).

The conference format was:

Friday, October 10th @ St. Mary's Cathedral Conference Center (1111 Gough St., SF, CA 94109), 5:30 - 8:30 pm:

The events on Friday introduced conference participants to the multiple benefits of ecological schoolyards through a networking and resource fair as well a keynote address by author Richard Louv. The networking and resource fair provided information, contacts, and materials that conference attendees can use in the classroom, in their communities, and on school grounds.

Saturday, October 11th @ Sherman, Sanchez, & Alvarado Elementary Schools (SF, CA) 8:30 am -4:30 pm:

On Saturday, three San Francisco public schools hosted a wide variety of half-day or whole-day workshops that offered information, resources, and hands-on experience in horticulture and garden-oriented green building techniques. Participants aquired skills they can apply at their own schools. Curriculum-oriented workshops aimed to teach participants how to connect their existing lessons to their green schoolyard.

 

Please click here to see the 2008 Conference Registration Brochure.

 

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The 2008 Growing Greener School Grounds Conference was supported by the San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance, SFUSD, the David B. Gold Foundation, The Foundation for Ecology and Culture, Occidental Arts & Ecology Center, The Studio for Urban Projects, Slide Ranch, and Marian & Charles Chatfield-Taylor.