The Gardening with Young Children Course is a 5-week self-paced distance learning course hosted on the NCSU online platform, Moodle. This course is worth 1.0 Continuing Education Units (CEUs). CEU is awarded by the McKimmon Center of Continuing & Lifelong Education, NC State University.

This Course Aims To:

• Provide knowledge, tools, and resources for providers and associated professionals to develop and program fruit and vegetable gardens for young children.
• Support healthy, active lifestyles of young children and motivate learning in, about, and through nature.

This Course Contains 8 Modules:

1. Gardening Activity Guide Overview
2. Phase 1: Preparing
3. Phase 2: Caring
4. Phase 3: Harvesting and Eating
5. Time to Harvest: Cool Season and Warm Season
6. Choosing child-friendly fruits and vegetables to grow in childcare centers
7. Keeping track of gardening activities
8. Final Knowledge Assessment/Capstone Project

Learning Outcomes

After completing the course, participants will be able to:

1. Recognize gardening in outdoor learning environments (OLEs) as an activity that supports physical activity, healthy eating, and outdoor learning
2. Describe gardening phases and activities tied to the curriculum.
3. Explain the annual sequence of gardening from preparing to harvesting and eating fresh fruit and vegetables.
4. Apply methods for creating and managing high-quality gardening settings to support experiential learning.