Excited shouts rang out across Province Park, as the group of girls peered closely at the bark of the tree.
“Hey guys, come check out this ant!” one of them shouted to the other campers taking part in this year’s Purdue Extension Johnson County garden camp. The children were in the middle of a nature scavenger hunt, finding items such as clover leaves, worms and pine cones. In looking closely at the natural world of the park, the kids found something amazing.
That was the goal of the garden camp — to examine the world around them, be it a backyard garden or a wooded park, and learn how to better appreciate it.
“You have to think like a kid, about what they’d need to know that they maybe didn’t learn in school,” said Linda Pfeiffer, master gardener and volunteer counselor at the camp. “You try to take those things they learn and apply it.”
Every Wednesday in June, about 12 children came to the Purdue Extension offices in Franklin to learn about pollinator insects, the benefits of certain plants in the garden and how to grow delicious vegetables on their own.
For the kids taking part, the camp is a chance to not only grow their own interest in gardening, but to open their eyes to the forces of nature that make it happen.
“I love learning, and I love plants, so it’s been really fun,” said Cooper Farmer, one of this year’s campers.
The garden camp has been offered by Purdue Extension Johnson County for years. When it was created, the idea was to provide an educational camp for budding gardeners ages 8 to 12 to discover the science of plant development.
Now, kids learn about everything from dirt to plants to bugs, with programs built around those different topics.
“We want to inspire them. Not everyone grows up with the same love and understanding of gardening and how things grow. So if they’re not doing that at home, we want to put that idea in their head about growing things and learning,” said Sarah Hanson, county director of Purdue Extension Johnson County.
The program is sponsored by the Trafalgar Country Gardeners, a community group focused on activities such as maintaining the demonstration gardens at the Johnson County fairgrounds and providing free public talks by gardening experts throughout the year, in addition to sponsoring the camp.
Tapping into the wealth of knowledge from local Master Gardeners as volunteer camp counselors, the program provides teachable moments through crafts, team-building exercises and hand-on activities — even snack time.
Each of the five program days of camp this year featured a different focus.
During one of the camp days, the kids and volunteers learned about mason bees, important plant pollinators in Indiana. After Pfeiffer explained the bees’ role in the ecosystem, the campers were able to make their own mason bee hive out of an empty Pringles can and small cardboard tubes.
They also made candles out of beeswax from local honey bees.
At the Purdue Extension office, a collection of raised-bed gardens provide real-life instruction on how plants grow and how best to care for them. Volunteers plant items earlier in the spring, so by the time camp rolls around, the kids can pick and taste some fresh local produce.
Campers also help weed and care for the plants, and plant their own marigolds while learning about how the flower is a natural insect repellent. From a collection of herbs, the kids discover the vital role of those fragrant plants in both food and nature.
“We just try to apply as much as we can into activities where they’re learning. We make it fun, but we make it informative,” Pfeiffer said.
Their approach has resonated with the kids. For Kaden Lanier, the entire camp has been fun, but the best part has been learning about bees.
“I like plants, and I like butterflies and bugs and that stuff,” he said. “Bees are actually a good bug in the forest.”
The most interesting lesson for Cooper has also been bug related.
“My favorite was learning about bug parts: their antennas, their heads and how they don’t have a skeleton like us,” he said.
