With its roots in the Progressive educational movement led by John Dewey, service learning is an educational method that emphasizes learning through meaningful experiences in which concepts explored in the classroom are applied for the greater benefit of society. In this edited volume, authors from various disciplines discuss how they have incorporated service learning into their teaching and provide examples of the approaches and methodologies that others can use to develop similar programs for their own classes. The authors demonstrate how service learning can be applied to areas as diverse as horticulture and landscape design to marketing and business, all with a goal to fulfill the developmental needs of students as well as the social needs of a particular project's benefactor. Service Learning Across the Curriculum is an unprecedented work that will inspire instructors to promote social prosperity through the education, service, and citizenship of their students.

Children's gardens are magical places where kids can interact with plants, see where food and fibers grow, and experience the role of birds, butterflies, and bees in nature. These gardens do more than just expose youngsters to outdoor environments, they also provide marvelous teaching opportunities for them to visit a small plot, care for vegetables and flowers, and interact in creative spaces designed to stimulate all five senses. In The Magic of Children's Gardens, landscape architect Lolly Tai provides the primary goals, concepts and key considerations for designing outdoor spaces that are attractive to and suitable for children especially in urban environments. Tai presents inspiring ideas for creating children's green spaces by examining nearly twentycase studies, including the Chicago Botanic Gardens and Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA. The Magic of Children's Gardens features hundreds of comprehensive drawings and gorgeous photographs of successful children's outdoor environments, detailed explanations of the design process, and the criteria needed to create attractive and pleasing gardens for children to augment their physical, mental, and emotional development. Exposing youth to well-planned outdoor environments promotes our next generation of environmental stewards. The Magic of Children's Gardens offers practitioners a guide to designing these valued spaces.

This unique resource expertly details the design, installation, and maintenance of sustainable children's landscapes and play areasNumerous case studies cover projects including storybook courtyards, music and barnyard gardens, nature trails, wildlife habitats, memorial, and edible gardens.Key featuresThis is the only resource for planning, designing, installing and maintaining children's landscapes and play yardsCase studies cover projects ranging from storybook and barnyard courtyards to nature trails, wildlife habitats, and memorial and edible gardens

Children love to play in risky-often misunderstood to mean unsafe-ways. It is often how they learn. Research shows that activities like climbing on trees and boulders, hiking in nature, and playing in a creek are excellent ways for kids to develop their creativity and their senses, because playing outdoors evokes different sights, sounds, smells, and textures. Letting Play Bloom analyzes five outstanding case studies of children's nature-based risky play spaces-the Slide Hill at Governors Island in New York, the Berkeley (CA) Adventure Playground, and Wildwoods at Fernbank Museum in Atlanta, as well as sites in the Netherlands and Australia. Author Lolly Tai provides detailed explanations of their background and design, and what visitors can experience at each site. She also outlines the six categories of risky-not hazardous-play, which involve great heights, rapid speeds, dangerous tools, dangerous elements, rough-and-tumble play, and wandering or getting lost. These activities allow children to explore and challenge themselves (testing their limits) to foster greater self-worth while also learning valuable risk-management skills such as dealing with fear-inducing situations. Filled with more than 200 photographs, Letting Play Bloom advocates for a thoughtful landscape design process that incorporates the specific considerations children need to fully experience the thrill that comes from playing in nature.