How to Tie Your Project into the State Curriculum
 Like a school's books or computers, the schoolyard is a tool to achieve curricular goals. Schoolyards offer an opportunity for students to interact with the environment, observe, explore, ask questions and seek answers.
- The activities associated with the creation, use and maintenance of a schoolyard habitat must be specifically linked to curricular outcomes. In Maryland it is essential that activities associated with the project are linked to the Maryland State Voluntary Curriculum and Core Learning Goals in many subjects.
- In excellent, student-driven projects students collect authentic data to assess the natural systems of their schoolyard and investigate how they can improve the schoolyard's impact to the local ecosystem. Some of the data that students can collect includes information on existing wildlife diversity, steep slopes, land use, erosion problems and naturalized spaces.
- Several nationally recognized studies demonstrate that schools who use the school grounds as a place for learning and make a school-wide commitment to the study of the environment, are schools that have higher reading and math achievement on standardized tests.
Integrating
Projects and the VSC
• MSDE Environmental Education Toolkit
• Professional Development Opportunities
• Standards-Based Schoolyard Habitat Lessons, Resources and Activities
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