Article

Gardening for Homonyms: Integrating Science and Language Arts to Support Children's Creative Use of Multiple Meaning Words

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Abstract

Curriculum integration can increase the presence of science at the elementary level. The purpose of this article is to share how two second-grade teachers have integrated language arts content as a part of science-language arts instruction in a garden-based learning context. One application was a teacher-designed Gardening for Homonyms lesson, which supported new ways of thinking about words and wordplay while developing science vocabulary related to structure and function, diversity of life, and interdependent relationships in ecosystems. This article provides the lesson and discusses its implementation in two second-grade classrooms. Examples of student work illustrate children's creative thought around and application of multiple meaning words. Pre-, post-, and extended posttest measures of students' ability to generate and to use homonyms demonstrate that this science-language arts integrated lesson can result in both short- and long-term learning. Applications and follow-up from the lesson over two subsequent years have engaged second and third grade students in study/inquiry about plant growth and life cycles while utilizing many facets of language arts, which have ranged from labeling an experimental design and writing predictions and results to conversing about digital “GigaPan” images on growing strawberries.

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... According to several studies, school garden teaching is characterised by its high degree of hands-on experience, experiential learning processes and student participation. We view these as essential teaching methods, and they are consistently emphasised as an essential difference between traditional indoor classroom teaching and outdoor school garden teaching (Fisher-Maltese 2013; Luna et al. 2015;McCarty 2010;Pigg et al. 2006;Selmer et al. 2014;Williams and Dixon 2013;Winters et al. 2010;Wood 2010). The definition of the term "traditional indoor classroom teaching" is often vague in the cited studies; and it is our interpretation that scholars often regard the meaning of this term as a matter of simple common sense. ...
... Research into learning environments addressing outdoor education, out-of-school learning or place-based learning often draws a distinction between the indoor classroom and the specific learning environment of interest (Peacock and Pratt 2011;Zandvliet 2012). Several of the studies mapped here also draw this distinction, with the school garden and indoor classroom being presented as distinct entities (Luna et al. 2015;Pascoe and Watt-Smith 2013;Rye et al. 2012;Selmer et al. 2014;Smith and Motsenbocker 2005;Winters et al. 2010). We believe that this distinction entails the risk of presenting the two learning environments as contrasting or incompatible, which is problematic because this is not the case. ...
... Blair 2009),(Graham et al. 2005),(Hazzard et al. 2011) Combination of indoor and outdoor teaching.(Luna et al. 2015),(Pascoe and Watt-Smith 2013),(Selmer et al. 2014),(Smith and Motsenbocker 2005),(Winters et al. 2010) Experiential learning as an essential teaching method.(Berezowitz et al. 2015), (Blair 2009), (Fisher--Maltese 2013), (Klemmer et al. 2005), (Pigg et al. 2006), (Selmer et al. 2014), (Williams and Dixon 2013) Formal and informal teachin ...
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... • The majority of studies relied heavily on researcher-designed materials (e.g. Luna et al., 2015;Tucker, 2017;Zhang & Campbell, 2012). The quality of these outcome measures were often difficult to determine and, therefore, may have been heavily susceptible to researcher-biases. ...
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... Common skills shared by both disciplines include observation, experimentation, problem solving, and openness to change (Chessin & Zander, 2006). Collaborative studies indicate increased interest in science through curiosity, cognitive effort to artistically visualize scientific concepts (Ursyn & Sung, 2007), collaboration with professional artists (Gurnon, 2013), and project/outdoor work (Luna & Rye, 2015). ...
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