According to Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden Sales and Development Senior VP Missy Whisler,
The Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden is one of the top display gardens in the country, a leading testing ground (literally!) for horticulture and an educational resource for all ages. Our education programs leverage the many varieties of plants, animals and insects that live in our gardens to engage more than 98,000 young learners in scientific inquiry each year.
The Dallas Arboretum needs your support as we equip more North Texas children with the essential knowledge, thinking skills and academic confidence they need to excite them about the sciences and to help them succeed in the sciences.
Our most innovative educational resource is the Rory Meyers Children’s Adventure Garden (RMCAG), an 8-acre outdoor science museum complete with hands-on exhibits, on-duty teachers and innovative “living” classrooms. Each of the 17 learning galleries explores a fundamental life and earth science topic such as plant life, energy, living cycles and more.
This garden is the only experience of its kind in the country, immersing children in the very subject they are exploring—the natural world. In fact, our team worked with its designers to ensure RMCAG materials and exhibits supplemented K-6 curriculums like the TEKS. This strategy created a highly unique, adaptable, and teacher-friendly learning environment that has won a Thea Award for Outstanding Achievement as a Science/Discovery Garden. Independent evaluations also continue to show that statistically significant numbers of students gained interest, clarity, knowledge and confidence in life and earth sciences after participating in STEM-based programming with the Dallas Arboretum.
At minimum, 30 percent of the students the Dallas Arboretum serves are from Title I schools, or schools that serve a disproportionate number of students from low-income families. Your North Texas Giving Day donation ensures that our team can deliver quality STEM programming to children, regardless of their background or financial capacity.
Our educational programs:
- Reinforce life and earth science education standards for K-6 students.
- Boost children’s interest in science while building self-esteem.
- Improve children’s enthusiasm and respect for the environment.
- Improve science education accessibility by distributing bus stipends and financial assistance to Title I schools.
- Train teachers in best practices for science education through professional development workshops.
Your gift on North Texas Giving Day will help us provide:
- eye-opening field trips
- supportive after school programs
- outreach programs
- summer camps
- many other exciting STEM education opportunities for K-6 students, and
- plus professional development workshops for local teachers.
Each donation can make a significant difference for each school, each classroom, each teacher and each child the Arboretum reaches—and these benefits might compound over these children’s lifetimes. After all, science engagement at a young age can snowball into personal and financial success later in life. According to the International Journal of Science Education, more than 65 percent of STEM professionals and graduate students say they cemented their interest in the sciences before middle school.
Thank you for your investment in our children’s future. With your partnership, our teachers can continue delivering the joy of discovery to our community’s children for years to come.
* Graphic/photo provided by Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden
In ten years, Communities Foundation of Texas’ North Texas Giving Day has pumped more than $240 million into the North Texas community. In 2018, more than $48 million was raised through more than 157,000 gifts benefiting over 2,700 area nonprofits.
On Thursday, September 19, support Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden by linking here and spreading the word. #NTxGivingDay
