Sign Up Today!
There are numerous opportunities to volunteer in the Children's Gardens in different capacities. From pulling weeds with your kids, to serving as a teen tour guide and working with K-12 students in our educational programs. By becoming a volunteer you automatically become a member of the gardens and recieve free parking, biannual newsletter, invitations to plant sales, seminars and field trips! Listed below are just a few of they ways you can help out. To sign up as a volunteer, download an application and mail or fax it to us today!

Education
Garden Discovery Guides
A Garden Discovery Guide leads a group of visitors on a tour of the MSU Horticulture Gardens, Michigan 4-H Children’s Garden and the Clancy E. Lewis Landscape Arboretum. Visiting groups range in ages from pre-school to senior citizen, with different interests and backgrounds. Docents (guides) must enjoy working with people and be comfortable giving interactive, informative tours of the garden. Training and a mentorship program are required for interested participants. Additional training can be done to deliver Garden Discovery programs. Garden Discoveries are hands-on lessons that cover a range of topics from Plant Parts, Plant Problems, to Garden Life Cycles. Garden Discoveries incorporate experiential learning in the garden as well as utilizing resources from the classroom. A Garden Discovery Guide would need to attend training workshops and assist in delivery of a few Garden Discoveries before leading their group.

Special Butterfly Training
A butterfly docent leads school groups through a discovery of the Indoor 4-H Children’s Garden during “Butterflies in the Garden.” There are two components to a “Butterflies in the Garden” visit; part of the visit is inside the Indoor 4-H Children’s Garden showing students the wonders of butterflies and part of the visit is in the classroom engaging the students in a hands-on lesson about butterflies. Training and the mentorship program are required for interested participants. Click here for more information on Butterfly Training.

Seeds of Science Training
Our Seeds of Science Program is innovative way to engage the curiosity of students in the plant sciences. Students interact with

Teen Tour Guides
We are looking for interested teens between the ages of 12-18 to lead tours through the garden. Show visitors interesting edibles, plants that smell like dirty socks and plants that hold water! This is a great opportunity for 4-H youth that love gardening and sharing that knowledge. High Schoolers interested in National Honor Society credit, community service and more are welcome to join in the fun!

Education Assistants : There is always a need for people that are interested in helping out with the education programs, but don’t have the time or interest to become a Garden Discovery Guide. Assistants might help facilitate small group conversations with students, keep students on task, answer questions, replenish supplies, make copies, record student ideas and more. (No special training is necessary)

Curriculum Development
There is always a need for volunteers with creative ideas to help develop innovate curriculum for visiting school groups. Lesson plans could be developed around a particular interest of the volunteer. For example an herb gardener might like to create a lesson on growing and harvesting herbs for cooking.

Garden Discovery Carts: Garden Discovery carts focus on one of the theme gardens and provide supplemental information and related activities. Volunteers can develop Garden Discovery cart materials for their favorite theme areas in the 4-H Children’s Gardens.

Playworker: Middle School and High Schools students who enjoy working with kids are needed to staff garden discovery carts in the Children’s Garden in the summer. We would welcome the sharing of special skills through demonstration or their own ideas of creating fun opportunities for young visitors.

Family Activities: Throughout the year we host a variety of event days for families. Event day themes include bug day, dinosaur day and multicultural day. On each day there are different activity stations. Volunteers can help plan activity stations and / or help lead the station on the event day.

Skill Demonstration: Do you have a particular talent or skill to share? We are looking for volunteers that might be interested in sharing their skills with garden visitors. You might like to play music; sketch, weave, knit, or dye and you could share that talent by putting on an informal demonstration. Volunteers might spend the day or evening enjoying the garden and sharing their knowledge with others.

Gardening
Family Volunteer Corp!
Have fun together as a family helping maintaining the Children's Garden. There is a tremendous need to weed! Learn about the many different types of plants and cultivars growing in the garden while transplanting, dividing, weeding, edging, planting, and meeting new friends! Everyone is welcome to help us out in this area, students, service learning projects, community service and anyone willing to play in the dirt! Schedule a time that works for you!

Garden Work Parties
Garden work partys take place on the second Saturday of every month beginning on April 8th, 2006. We meet at 9:00am in the Children's Garden in rain or shine until about noon. Come for a little bit or stay the whole time, there are always things to do, either outside or in the Indoor 4-H Garden.

Adopt a Garden!
This year we would like to invite volunteers to take care of their favorite garden! To help keep the garden looking great, you and your friends would be in charge of the maintence of a particular garden throughout the summer. Students would water, but you can help plant, weed, etc.

Other Ideas
Technology Developers : Help develop and deliver technology applications that enhance and expand the hands-on learning that occurs in the garden. Possible projects range from creating web sites, games, Flash applications, web cams, PDA applications and any other technology application that you are interested in. This is a great opportunity to create fun technology applications for kids. A great way to build your resume!

Garden Researchers : Help collect data on how students use the garden and learn in the garden. If you really enjoy working with data and numbers this opportunity is just for you

Do you have other ideas to volunteer in the garden? We would love to hear about them!

For more information or any questions contact:

Jessica Albright
Education Coordinator,
Michigan 4-H Children's Gardens
B102 Plant & Soil Sciences
East Lansing, MI. 48824-1325
517.355.5191 x 1-327
garden4h@msu.edu

To sign up to volunteer please download an application and mail or fax it to the information listed above: