Chicago Botanic Garden 

Children’s Learning Center

 The new Children’s Learning Center will be a national center of excellence in providing environmental education for early childhood through high-school students and teachers, for families and children, for Scout and other after-school groups, and for general visitors who want to learn about plants and nature at one of the world’s leading botanic gardens.  The Center will offer engaging multisensory activities, exhibits that tell important stories about the environment, and indoor/outdoor classrooms – all in a physical structure that reflects values that the Chicago Botanic Garden prizes: beauty, dedication to science, and sustainable design.  The programs, classes, and informal experiences offered in this space will greatly expand the region’s environmental education capacity overall.  They will also reflect the institution’s belief that botanic gardens have a unique mission and opportunity to help lead the educational development of our children, including those with special needs. 

Background

The Chicago Botanic Garden is one of the great gardens of the world, a living museum known for its extensive, diverse plant collections, exquisite horticultural displays, critical plant conservation research, and in-depth educational programs.  We are the ideal setting for teaching and learning about plants and their role in our lives, and we are already a recognized leader in environmental education. Creating a new Children’s Learning Center will boost our capacity to serve students, use the latest in learning methodology, and bring national recognition to our excellent educational programs.

In 2006, the Garden opened the current Children’s Learning Center, an H-shaped structure constructed of modular buildings, containing three classrooms, public restrooms, an outdoor tented deck, and office space for staff.  This building serves as the hub of activity for school field trips, summer camps, Scout programs, teacher professional development, and other classes for kids.  About 28,000 children from Chicago Public Schools, greater Cook County, and surrounding area – students, Scouts, summer campers, family groups—and 1,000 teachers use the Center each year as a base to learn about the natural world and from which they can explore the larger Garden.  An additional 57,000 young people participate in recreational and informal educational programs that are part of events and drop-in visitor programs in other locations around the Garden.  In four years we have outgrown the capacity of our building and now seek to expand at a time when learning about conservation science has never been more important.

The Need

 A growing body of research shows that direct experiences with nature are critical to the intellectual, psychological, social, and physical development of our children (Louv 2006).  Playing and learning outdoors encourage intellectual curiosity and deeper understanding of the natural world while promoting the child’s physical, mental, and emotional health. 

Children who experience a connection with nature are more resilient to the stresses of modern life.  Exposure to green space also fosters social development, helping children to establish more meaningful human relationships (Villani 2001, Wals 2007).  Moreover, a strong environmental education curriculum has been correlated with improved academic achievement overall.

 In spite of all this evidence, it remains an unfortunate fact that this generation of children has far less direct experience of the outdoors and the natural world – water, woods, prairies, and sensory gardens – than their parents, and less still than their grandparents.  The consequences of this deprivation are becoming apparent:  obesity, attention difficulties, and depression are all conditions linked to what has been termed, “nature deficit disorder.”  The Chicago Botanic Garden will do its part to mitigate this problematic trend by creating a garden campus that young people will beg their parents to visit.  At the heart of this campus plan is a lively indoor component, the Children’s Learning Center, which will house all programs and staff in a state-of-the-art facility that interprets and strengthens a child’s connection with the outdoors.