School Tours at Grimm's Gardens

A visit to Grimm's Gardens provides a look into the workings of both a crop / livestock farm and a nursery / greenhouse / landscaping business. Students who visit through a school tour with their class have the opportunity to experience current rural life and a family business. Depending on the curriculum or requests of the teacher scheduling the tour, students may try their hands at the following:

*Be a geologist: Look at the root structure of plants and how it changes as it encounters different types of soil. By investigating the layers of dirt in a deep trench, students can see how soil quality affects growth.

*Be a horticulturist: By examining trees and shrubs in the nursery, students look at how grafts are done to grow trees with identical features to the parent tree. They also have the opportunity to plant some small plants.

*Care for livestock: Many students have never fed a cow or milked a goat. At Grimm's Gardens, even children from the city can get a taste of animal husbandry.

*Be an engineer: How can a job be done most easily? When the right tools are available, a seemingly impossible task can be accomplished. Through touring the shop and looking at some of the machines and their uses, students can expand their awareness of tools for various jobs.

*Be a marine biologist: With on-site fish ponds and pondless waterfall features, students can examine what is necessary to keep an ecosystem functioning and in balance. The inter-relationships between water, plants, and animals on a small scale mimic those of the natural world around us.

Students who have visited us at Grimm's Gardens take away a whole new viewpoint of agricultural life. The evidence is in letters that we have received from children and teachers.

"We saw a barn with a goat in it. I can't believe you let me milk the goat. Thank you so much for even letting me touch him." - 4th grade student

"You are truly a gifted teacher. The way you deliver information on the level of the learner draws them right to you. We had a classroom guest speaker from the Natural Resources Dept. the week after our visit that was very impressed with the kid's knowledge of soil and their interest in soil conservation techniques." - A teacher

"We saw the well. It was fascinating by how deep it was. It was 20 feet deep. That was the first time I've ever seen a well besides on T.V. I saw a little bit of water in the well." - 4th grade student