Little River Canyon 
Field School

Jacksonville State University
246 Martin Hall
700 Pelham Road North
Jacksonville, AL 36265
(256) 782-5697

Native Plants & Gardens

Native Plants

Why grow native plants? Because they are adapted, require less fertilizer and water, and once established they need little maintenance. Many of our natural system are disappearing. Plants from other countries are invading. Work with your students to help re-establish a natural plant system. Use the sites below to learn more!

http://plants.usda.gov/home_page.html
National plant database with pictures. You can sort by state.

http://www.panix.com/~eshelton/wildflow/plntlnk.html
Nice set of links for plant photos.

http://www.duc.auburn.edu/~deancar/
Great slide show of Alabama wildflowers

Growing Ferns

These fairly primitive plants are fun and easy to grow from spores, but require patience! Students can observe haploid and diploid life forms. This project takes at least a full school year to complete, and would really be excellent for teachers that loop with their students for two or more years.

http://www.lm.net.au/~kerogers/page7.html
Nice simple description of growing ferns from spores

http://www.greendealer-exotic-seeds.com/seeds/HowtoFerns.html
Good description of how to grow ferns from spores

http://www.users.bigpond.com/glenyakimoff/fern_propagation.html
Australian site on growing ferns from spores

http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/plants/handbooks/ferns/3.html
Excellent site describing fern propagation from the Brooklyn botanical garden

http://www.home.aone.net.au/byzantium/ferns/growing.html
Another good article on growing ferns from spores

http://www.donitaworld.com/Plants/Fern/links.html
Good series of links on ferns

http://www.greendealer-exotic-seeds.com/seeds/HowtoFerns.html
How to divide ferns – the quick approach

Growing Mosses

Mosses are primitive plants that grow in almost any moist shady environment. They grow on rocks, logs, trees, soil, almost anywhere. This is a great project for urban schools with limited open space. See how many mosses you and your students can collect and grow!

http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/botany/repro_bryophytes.html
Brooklyn Botanical Garden description of mosses and how to propagate them

http://berks.extension.psu.edu/mg/hgargd/mossgardening.html
Good description of moss use and establishment

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/4253019.htm
Nice newspaper piece about moss gardens in yards

http://www.northlandgardens.com/pages/grow-moss.html
Quick and easy instructions on growing mosses

http://www.ehow.com/how_11697_grow-moss-garden.html
Very brief how to grow mosses article

http://www.evergreen.edu/canopylab/outreach/moss.html
Moss experiment conducted at a prison

http://worldofmosses.com/dtm/dtm15.html
How to grow mosses. Part of an excellent site of World of Mosses (http://worldofmosses.com/index.html) with lovely drawings, paintings, and descriptions.

http://www.backyardnature.net/mosses.htm
Good simply written background article about mosses.

http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/tropicos/most/welcome.shtml
Great technical site from the Missouri Botanical gardens. Ideal for in depth studies.

Gardens

You really need to develop a team to tackle a garden project unless it is a small container based project. However, growing a garden with your students is extremely rewarding. Gardening creates lifelong memories. I remember a cast tile in my grandmother’s garden that said: The kiss of the sun for pardon / The song of the bird for mirth / One is nearer to God’s heart in a garden / Than anywhere else on Earth. Gardening ties together so many environmental themes from photosynthesis to soils to weather, and on and on. There are many approaches and themes you can use. These links will lead you to many.

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/kinder/sgardens.html
Good site to use to plan your garden – links to various approaches

http://www.kidsgardening.com/
Lots of resources from online classes to grants and resources

http://www.cityfarmer.org/schgard15.html
Nice list of links and even a free listserv about school gardens

http://commserv.ucdavis.edu/CESanDiego/Schlgrdn/HomePage.html
Although oriented toward California garden this page has many tips and links

http://hort.ifas.ufl.edu/ggk/schgard.htm
Florida site has many good resources

http://www.journeytoforever.org/edu_garden.html
Many good ideas for outdoor education other than gardening

Worms and composting

There are many lessons to be learned from making compost and raising worms – decomposition, the 5 kingdoms, cell types, nutrient cycling, recycling, and so on. There are more organisms in a thimbleful of compost that there are people on Earth. This is an easy and rewarding project that ties well into gardening. Working compost and worm bins do not stink and will not smell up you room or outdoor classroom.

http://www.imakenews.com/psla/e_article000101323.cfm
Goes over the basics

http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/worms/teachersbin/
A FAQ page on classroom worm bins – good elementary resources with Herman the Worm

http://compost.css.cornell.edu/Composting_homepage.html
Excellent place to start to learn about composting. Also has good links.

http://www.globalnet.org.nz/schools_projects/resources/Wormlinks.shtml
New Zealand list of links for worms and compost