Integrating schoolyard flora into the first grade science curriculum

Local plants are an underutilized resource in elementary school science education. Curricular use of local schoolyard flora has a strong potential to reverse children's declining interest in and awareness of the natural world while helping teachers to better meet the science academic standards. This study addresses the question of whether first grade teachers in Richland County School District One, Columbia, South Carolina, are prepared and willing to use their schools' diverse flora as a teaching tool by (1) documenting the species richness of flora at four South Carolina elementary schools; (2) assessing first grade teachers' (n = 13) current state of knowledge about their schoolyard plants with a plant identification task; and (3) investigating, with written interviews, teachers' attitudes toward incorporating schoolyard flora into their classroom curriculum. The schoolyards have an average of 106 cultivated and wild plant species, and teachers were able to identify 42% of a subset of the most common and prominent schoolyard plants at the four schools. Teachers believe that nature study is important. However, their own low knowledge of plants is one of the main factors preventing the integration of nature study into their curriculum. To help teachers overcome their botanical knowledge deficits, I have created a sample of geographically relevant botany resources for use by first grade teachers and their students. Such inexpensive resources can improve the quality of elementary school science education by arming teachers with new, nature-based techniques and additional content knowledge with which to address South Carolina's Science Academic Standards.