Ms. Chaides' 4th Graders Plant in the Native American Garden

Today Ms. Chaides' 4th graders learned about ethnobotany and planted in the Marquez Native American Garden. Ethnobotany is the study of how humans use plants. In our case we are studying how Native people used and still use some of the native plants around them for medicine, food and utensils or tools.  One of the students acted as scribe and took notes in the class garden notebook.

Today the students added some plants to the garden which was planted a couple of years ago as well as weeded the area. Thanks to Carol Bornstein, Director of the Nature Garden at the Natural History Museum and Nancy Cipes, sustainable landscaper, for helping get the plants.

The plants which were planted include: monkeyflower, black sage, purple sage, manzanita and deer grass. They joined the existing garden of monkeyflower, milkweed, California poppy, alum root, California Sagebrush, Cleveland sage and ceanothus.  There are many poppy seedlings growing that were sowed by Ms. Palo's class. In a couple of months the area will be full of the orange flowers of this our state flower. We also have white sage and an oak tree elsewhere on the campus. We'll add the white sage to this area soon.

This spring the students will learn some of the uses of the plants by people and by wildlife.   They are also learning the importance of mulch. Most of the areas are mulched and the dirt was easier to dig in because the soil was more moist. An easy one to remember is deer grass which native people weave into baskets. Also, sages, which are in the mint family, are used for tea.

Thanks to Sharon Agraba for helping plant.

Weeding

Weeding

Planting deer grass