With the Philadelphia School District’s recent decision to hold the upcoming school year virtually through November, POP’s School Orchard Program wants to share a number of the educational resources we’ve created over the years that can be used by teachers and families looking to connect the natural environment and the city’s orchards to students as an important supplement to digital learning. In partnership with the Free Library of Philadelphia’s Becky Shankovich and Historic Fair Hill’s Jean Hurd, POP Education Director Alyssa Schimmel along with POP interns Ngoc Pham and Bethany Bronkema, we’ve created this book list of 20 titles on the topics of orchards, fruit, community gardening, youth food system engagement, and cultural foodways, aimed for students in grades K-6. Consider requesting these titles through any branch of the city’s Free Library locations. In the upcoming months, we aim to create simple, suggested lessons from each of the titles included on this list. The full book list can be downloaded as a PDF from our Resource Page under Curriculum & Lesson Plans. You can also follow this link to the Free Library catalog to place a hold or check out the titles in this list!

An excerpt from the book list.

We hope these books enrich learning experiences for students and children this upcoming school year! Please feel free to share how you’ve shared these titles with youth in your community!

This POP Blog Post was written by POP Education Director Alyssa Schimmel.

SUPPORT US!  If you found this entry useful, informative, or inspiring, please consider a donation of any size to help POP in planting and supporting community orchards in Philadelphia: phillyorchards.org/donate POP’s School Orchard Program is funded in part by the Rosenlund Family Foundation, the Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation, and the Isenberg Family Fund.