Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study - Ontario. Department of Education

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taught to observe the growing plants with great care, noting developments day by day. This adds to their appreciation of the beauties and adaptations found among plants on every side, and cannot fail to produce good results in moral as well as in mental development. The teachers must always remember that the gardeners with whom they are working are more important than the gardens which they cultivate.

      The best garden is not always the largest and most elaborate one. It is rather the garden that both teacher and pupils have been most deeply interested in. It is the garden in which they have experienced most pleasure and profit that makes them want to have another better than the last. No school is too small to have a garden of some kind, and no garden is too small to become the joy and pride of some boy or girl.

      SUGGESTIONS

      For the benefit of teachers beginning their duties on the first of September, in school sections where school gardening has never been carried on, the following suggestions are offered:

      1. See if the grounds will permit of a part being used for a garden. To ascertain this, note the size of the present grounds and see if they meet the requirements of the Department as laid down in the Regulations. If they do not, consult your Inspector at once and acquaint him with your plans. If the grounds are to be enlarged, try to take in sufficient land of good quality to make a good garden. The part chosen for the garden should be both convenient and safe. Examine the soil to see if it is well drained and sufficiently deep to permit of good cultivation. Lack of fertility can be overcome by good fertilizing.

      2. See that the fences and gates are in good repair. When circumstances will permit, a woven wire fence that will exclude dogs, pigs, and poultry is most desirable. If not used to inclose the whole grounds, it should at least inclose the part used for gardening.

      3. Begin modestly and provide room for extension as the work progresses. Sow clover on the part to be held in reserve for future gardening operations.

      4. If local public sentiment is not strongly in favour of school gardening, or is somewhat adverse, begin on a small scale. If the work is well done, you will soon have both moral and financial support.

      5. See that the land is well drained. Plough it early in the autumn and, if a load of well-rotted manure is available, spread it on the land before ploughing. Commercial fertilizer may also be used on the plots the following spring, but no stable manure.

      6. In spring, when dry enough, cultivate thoroughly with disc and drag harrows. Build up a compost heap in the rear of the garden with sods and stable manure, for use in the autumn and also the following spring.

      GARDEN EXPENSES

      In connection with those schools where the teacher holds a diploma from the Ontario Agricultural College in Elementary Agriculture and Horticulture, there is no difficulty in meeting the expenses for seeds, tools, fertilizers, and labour, as the Government grant for such purposes is sufficient. In other schools, however, where the teacher holds no such diploma (and such is the case in most of the schools as yet), other means of meeting the expenses must be resorted to. The following are offered as suggestions along this line:

      1. Part of the grant made to every school for the maintaining of the school grounds should be available for school garden expenses.

      2. An occasional school entertainment may add funds that could not be used to better advantage.

      3. An occasional load of stable manure supplied free from neighbouring farms will help to solve the fertilizer problem.

      4. Donations of plants and seeds by the parents and other interested persons and societies will be forthcoming, if the teacher is in earnest and his pupils interested.

      5. If it is required, the trustees could make a small grant each year toward the cost of tools.

      6. Fencing and cultivation of the garden can often be provided for by volunteer assistance from the men of the school section.

      7. It is often possible to grow a garden crop on a fairly large scale, the school being formed into a company for this purpose and the proceeds to be used to meet garden expenses.

      8. The pupils can readily bring the necessary tools from home for the first season's work.

      9. Many Agricultural and Horticultural societies offer very substantial cash prizes for school garden exhibits, and all funds so obtained should be used to improve the garden from which the exhibits were taken.

      10. An earnest, resourceful teacher will find a way of meeting the necessary expenses.

       Table of Contents

      Nature Study is essentially an outdoor subject. While it is true that a considerable amount of valuable work may be done in the class-room by the aid of aquaria, insectaria, and window boxes, yet the great book of nature lies outside the school-house walls. The teacher must lead or direct his pupils to that book and help them to read with reverent spirit what is written there by its great Author.

      Value.—The school excursion is valuable chiefly because it brings the pupil into close contact with the objects that he is studying, permits him to get his knowledge at first hand, and gives him an opportunity of studying these objects in their natural environment. Incidentally the excursion yields outdoor exercise under the very best conditions—no slight advantage for city children especially; and it gives the teacher a good opportunity to study the pupils from a new standpoint. It also provides a means of gathering Nature Study material.

      Difficulties.—Where is the time to be found? How can a large class of children be managed in the woods or fields? If only one class be taken, how, in an ungraded school, are the rest of the children to be employed? Will the excursion not degenerate into a mere outing? What if the woods are miles away? These are all real problems, and the Nature Study teacher, desirous of doing his work well, will have to face some of them at least.

      SHORT EXCURSIONS

      The excursion need not occupy much time. It should be well planned beforehand. One object only should be kept in view and announced to the class before starting. Matters foreign or subordinate to this should be neglected for the time. The following are suggested as objects for excursions:

      Objects.—A bird's nest in an adjacent meadow; a ground-hog's hole; a musk-rat's home; crayfish or clams in the stream near by; a pine (or other) tree; a toad's day-resort; the soil of a field; the pests of a neighbouring orchard; a stone-heap or quarry; ants' nests or earthworms' holes; the weeds of the school yard; buds; the vegetable or animal life of a pond; sounds of spring; tracks in the snow; a spider's web.

      Such excursions may be accomplished at the expenditure of very little time. Many of them will take the pupils no farther than the boundaries of the school yard.

      Of course the locality will influence the character of the excursion, as it will that of the whole of the work done in Nature Study, but in any place the thoughtful teacher may find material for open-air work at his very door.

      Much outside work can be done without interfering with the regular programme. The teacher may arrange a systematic list of questions and problems for the pupils to solve from their own observations, and these observations may be made by the pupils at play hours, or while coming or going from school, or on Saturdays. The following will serve as an example of the treatment that may be followed:

      Pests of Apple Trees.—Look on the twigs of your apple trees for little scales. Bring an infected branch to school. Note whether unhealthy-looking or dead branches are infected. Examine scales with a lens. Loosen one, turn it over, and examine with a lens the under side.

      For eggs, look closely at the twigs in June. Do you see white specks moving? If so examine them with a lens.

      Are

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