Building our Classroom

An outdoor classroom is important for teaching consumers about plant health and care. The Parker Scripture Gardens continue to add new educational opportunities for consumers interested in learning more about consumer horticulture with 6 featured gardens, including Perennials, Herbs, Vegetables, Cottage Flowers, Roses and Daylilies. To demonstrate principles of Integrated Pest Management, we built a Butterfly House which featured plants that host and feed butterflies. In its first year, the Butterfly House had over 950 visitors. In addition, we improved our Nature Trails by building board walks, posting trail signs, adding embossed animal tracks and posting identification information about trees and wildflowers.

Teaching Adults About the Environment

Home owners, consumers and plant enthusiasts often have questions about horticulture that require more than a book or website. In the Master Gardener Program, 74 adults meet regularly for hands-on education, maintaining the Parker Scripture Gardens and for classroom instruction by local gardening experts. In 2005, 17 new gardeners completed the 30-hour training to become a Master Gardener. These gardeners will continue their training through 50 hours of volunteer time. At the 9th Annual Herb and Flower Festival, over 1000 consumers visited the gardens and attended educational classes. In 2005, over 1900 Oneida County residents received materials or attended classes to learn more about horticulture and environmental stewardship with an additional 50,000 readers seeing weekly articles in the Utica Observer- Dispatch. Staff helped 880 callers through the Horticulture Hot Line, tested the pH of 66 soil samples, and identified over 150 plants and insects for mystified consumers.

Teaching Youth About the Environment

The Environmental Stewardship Program works closely with schools throughout Oneida County to offer education in the area of outdoor life, conservation and other environmental programs. Through the Touring Teacher Program, 4 educators offer classes and field trip experiences for grades Pre K-6th. In 2005, 735 youth received classroom education on environmental issues from Touring Teachers. New this year, over 170 youth took field trips to the Farm & Home Center for field observation and hands-on experiments. Students discovered the butterfly life cycle, good and bad bugs, horticulture and gardening, and learned to identify animal prints, trees and weeds.
Each year, 13 schools participate in CCE's Conservation Education Days held at Lake Delta in Rome. In 2005, 1194 students attended a full day, completing 12 hands-on activity stations where they learned about conservation on the farm, forest management, hiking and camping safety, water quality and more.