Keep Growing 2020:
The Ten-Year Strategic PlanProgress ForwardYear One 2010
The Center for Teaching and Learning
The Center for Teaching and Learning welcomed over 25,000 children from Chicago Public Schools, greater Cook County, and surrounding areas. Scouts, summer campers, family groups and over 1,000 teachers use the Garden’s Center for Teaching and Learning each year as a place to extend their knowledge of the natural world. Also in 2010, an additional 57,000 young people participated in informal educational programs, that were part of events and drop-in visitor programs in other locations around the Garden.
The Joseph Regenstein, Jr. School of the Chicago Botanic Garden
In 2010, the School educated more than 5,000 adult life-long learners, landscape industry and health care professionals through a 500 workshops, short-course, wellness classes, certificate programs, and plant related symposia and conferences.
Horticultural Therapy Services
Horticultural Therapy Services served 8,000 special needs children, disabled or elderly clients at agency sites, consulted on the development of four enabling and healing gardens at hospitals and hospice centers, and hosted the 2010 American Horticultural Therapy Association national conference with the Center for Teaching and Learning.
Green Youth Farm Grows
Green Youth Farm program at Dyett H.S. received funding that has allowed it to become a year-round production and student education program in Chicago’s Washington Park community. Dyett teens work, learn, and serve the community, and in growing season, they give recipe demonstrations to mothers from the Women Infant and Children’s (WIC) center, who then redeem their vouchers for packets of produce the teens have grown.
Windy City Harvest Expands
Windy City Harvest had 15 students graduate from the 2010 certificate class. The Windy City Harvest Cook County Boot Camp Gardening Program expanded in 2010 to include a one-acre composting project that employs five boot camp graduates. Other boot camp graduates work as seasonal grounds crew at the Chicago Botanic Garden and at the Native Seed Garden in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago.
2010 Operating Plans
Read the 2010 Community Education Programs Operating Plan.
(Note: this is a Word file. You will need Microsoft Word to open this file.)
Progress ForwardYear Two 2011
2011 Operating Plans
Read the 2011 Education Operating Plan.
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Progress ForwardYear Three 2012
Progress ForwardYear Four 2013
Progress ForwardYear Five 2014
Progress ForwardYear Seven 2016
Progress ForwardYear Eight 2017
Progress ForwardYear Nine 2018
Progress ForwardYear Ten 2019
Community Education
Education and Community Programs: Vision
The Garden’s excellence in community education programs will make a powerful, measurable impact on people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds.
The Garden will excel in programs that take place on the Garden’s grounds, at satellite locations within diverse communities, and through electronic and other emerging media.
Program participants will receive the highest caliber of instruction on subjects related to plants, healthy ecosystems, and food production, healing and well-being, and will increase their understanding and respect for the natural world.
Education and Community Programs: Goals
The Garden’s Center for Teaching and Learning will deliver highly effective early childhood, youth, K-12, and teacher environmental education programs that will be recognized internationally as models for proven best practices. The customer's needs will be at the center of service and programming.
The Garden will become a national leader in creating and using plant-centered therapies, publications, and programs to serve the health and wellness needs of people of all abilities from birth through death;
The Garden will serve as a model of how a botanic garden can make vital, year-round contributions toward strong local food systems. These contributions include urban agriculture jobs training, youth leadership initiatives, and school-based gardening programs that strengthen underserved communities while also increasing access to good nutrition and fresh produce;
The Garden’s community education programs will reach and affect more people, generate more revenue, and advance the Garden’s international reputation by publishing—both in print and electronically—a variety of environmental education, horticultural therapy, and horticultural job training resources and curricula.
The Joseph Regenstein, Jr., School of the Chicago Botanic Garden will build its relevance and impact by providing learning opportunities that educate and engage diverse constituencies and foster connections with plants and nature.