Junior gardeners get their hands dirty

The azaleas may be the standout botanical feature on Rockefeller’s campus at the moment, but be on the lookout for new additions. Junior gardeners at the Child and Family Center have begun planting gardens around the westernmost of two fountains on the north side of Caspary Auditorium’s blue dome.

Karen J. Booth, director of the CFC, says securing land for gardening was one of the first things teachers requested when she took the job last July. In total, 10 plots, one for each of nine classrooms plus an herb garden and a “free-digging area,” are taking shape. “Children are planting quick growing vegetables like cucumbers, beans, tomatoes and pumpkins, that we should see yield from and that the children will be able to eat in the classroom,” she says.

The effort is part of a growing movement in early childhood education to address the “nature deficit” that accompanies increasing urbanization and greater usage of technology and TV viewing at younger ages, Ms. Booth says. It also stimulates curiosity and can form the beginnings of scientific inquiry. “We want to allow children more natural play, more direct encounters with soil and seeds and animals and insects. Some children have never kicked their feet in a stream, been in the woods, held a worm, and these are important experiences to have,” she says.

With help from Anne Nurse, wife of President Paul Nurse and a former nursery school teacher in the U.K., Ms. Booth planted marigolds and blueberry bushes around the borders of some plots. “Anne has been very involved and supportive of this project, which has been great,” Ms. Booth says.

Another new addition to the campus is three newly planted Eastern White Pine trees on the south side of the university’s main driveway. The trees are indigenous to the northeastern United States, says Alex Kogan, associate vice president for physical facilities and housing, and were planted to replace trees that were uprooted during construction of an electrical vault under the 66th Street parking lot.