Finding Our Conservation Use and Sustainability (FOCUS)
We combine instruction from the curriculum with horticultural activities and encourage social interaction and sensory stimulation. We take our cue from how the class progresses to determine at which point we plan the first interaction between the mentors and students, but after that has successfully occurred, we plan monthly interactions between the elders and the students, sometimes at the school, and sometimes, depending upon the location of the facility in relation to the school, at the senior living facility. We try to keep the same mentor matched to the same student, bearing in mind that both populations will flux and change from year to year due to students completing their high school education or an inability on the part of the mentors to continue participation. Each year, the students receive a certificate of participation in the program, or if they have completed the Junior Master Gardeners, Level 1, certification and a pin There are other curricula, in that program, aimed at that same educational level, so the class can move onto other modules in the series and reinforce the concepts they learned from the Level 1 curriculum or repeat the Level 1 when the demographics of the class shift as students join or leave the class, and students who are already Junior Master Gardeners can act as peer mentors to students new to the curriculum.
