Children in Nature Quarterly: Winter 2026

Partnerships and Access to Nature 

The Growing Center's Children in Nature Initiative is based on partnerships. These partnerships support and create opportunities for kids and youth to spend time outdoors playing and learning in city green spaces like the Growing Center. 

We'd like to share some of our recent work with these partners:

*The SHS Culinary Arts Program;

Farrington Nature Linc; and

*Somerville Family Learning Collaborative

Farrington Nature Linc offers programming to elementary and middle school students in Somerville’s afterschool and vacation programs. In collaboration with the Growing Center, they have visited the garden the past several years. They have participated in stewardship projects, creating accessible garden signage and educational materials for the maple boil. They offered walking field trips to the center during February vacation and the Maple boil Education Day. 

Educator Brandon Tolentino-Serrano shared this message after their February vacation visit:

 “I just wanted to thank you for the materials and for letting us hang out at the Growing Center. It was such a beautiful day yesterday and we had a blast! We were able to spend more time outside than we expected and the students were excited to see the signage we made last school year and are hoping to return again when the Growing Center is bustling with growth. Thanks again for the continued support.”

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Somerville High School Culinary Arts Program Teacher David Ginivisian also visited the garden during Maple Education Day with his students. Past years' students have done the maple sap finishing process after we boil down the sap as much as we can over the two days. This year, students played a true/false game about maple facts, learned about the physiological process and function of sap in trees and learned about the animals, insects and birds that rely on sap in the spring. They also learned how to make real maple syrup from sap. They tasted sap and the Growing Center’s own maple syrup. Several of the students shared that this was their first time tasting real maple syrup and it was totally unlike what they had tasted before. The kitchen was gifted 10 gallons of sap and David created a lesson for sophomores and shared the exciting photos with us of the class boiling the sap! 

Kids and adults alike helped with snow removal this winter!

Somerville Family Learning Collaborative, Dandelion Montessori, and Pooh and Friends Learning Center visited the garden as regularly as they could through all weathers this winter season. Playing outdoors in all weather develops resilience and direct learning of weather systems and the elements. It also provides opportunities for growth in socio-emotional and motor skills development. We thank everyone who helped shovel and clear pathways in addition to learning about stewardship in the garden and safe places to dig in the winter months, shhh, garlic is growing! 

Children and caregivers participating in the Somerville Family Learning Collaborative's playgroups made snow forts this winter.

We appreciate these partners who through the cold winter and early spring visited the garden regularly. Additionally, we welcomed teachers from the Capuano Early Childhood Center later in April for the first in a series of professional development workshops on Nature play, What’s possible in Schoolyards and Beyond.

Paula Jordan is the Growing Center's Site Manager and Children in Nature Initiative Coordinator.