IMPORTANT NOTE: Due to the need for materials provided by Fairchild, schools may only participate if a teacher has completed the Google Registration Form by September 11, 2024. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this, please email challenge@fairchildgarden.org.
YOUR CHALLENGE:
Join Fairchild’s Native Plant Network – the local citizen science program that enlists South Florida residents and students to preserve and restore South Florida’s native ecosystems. For this challenge, we are asking for your help. Learn about the native plants in your community and how to care for them by creating a native plant garden in your schoolyard in the hopes of attracting wildlife to your yard and reducing urban heat island effects. Fairchild will provide you with a variety of native plants and materials to transform your space. Those that participated in last year’s middle school garden challenge can add these plants into their pine rockland garden or can plant them in a different location.
Care for your plants throughout the school year while researching the ecological, economic, and social benefits of adding native plants, including the species you received, to your school or community. Then, in Spring 2025, Fairchild staff will visit your school to tour your native plant garden and to hear what you’ve learned and about your experience. Download PDF for this info on one page
| ✓ Submission Requirements: |
| | Optional Virtual Teacher Workshop (highly recommended) on September 25, 2024 |
| | Plant and material pick up week – October 12-13, 2024 |
| | On-site student presentation describing your experience planting and maintaining your native garden. Your students’ presentation should also describe the long term and short term ecological, economic, and social benefits of adding these native plants to your school. |
| | Mandatory Digital Entry Form. The Fairchild Challenge team will reach out only to teachers who have completed this form to set up their school’s judging visit. |
| | One submission per school. |
| | On-time entry form submission. Late submissions will NOT be accepted due to scheduling needs for judging. |
CHALLENGE RESOURCES:
