School Partnerships
Since 2003, the Arboretum has made a concerted effort to reinvigorate outreach efforts with Boston Public Schools. This project began by providing bus transportation to the Arboretum for students from several Boston schools for field studies experiences.
Responding to Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s call for neighboring universities to assist the educational needs of local schools, the Arboretum developed a program to enhance science instruction in both classrooms and on Arboretum field trips. The content and learning activities for the program were based on the FOSS (Full Option Science System) New Plants unit, which is part of Boston Public Schools’ general science curriculum for the second grade.
In January 2009, Arboretum educators introduced this program to second graders at the Louis Agassiz Elementary School in Jamaica Plain, and expanded the program in its third year to include first grade classrooms. When the Agassiz School closed in June 2011, the Arboretum formed a new partnership to continue the program with the Boston Teachers Union School, also located in Jamaica Plain. In the first year of this new partnership, the Arboretum will provide consistent science instruction for students in the first and second grades. Arboretum educators will be co-teaching all science units during the school year, which include life science and earth science curricula.
Funded by the Nature Study Fund for City Children, the program enables Arboretum educators to guide students in hands-on experiences with growing plants and understanding natural life cycles. The project is also designed to teach students how to think and work like scientists, documenting their ongoing investigations in research notebooks. In addition to studying a variety of organisms and nurturing seedlings on their own, students visit the Arnold Arboretum to participate in the Flowers Change field study program.