Rewilding: A Storyline

Grades: 2-4
Total Number of Pages:  18

PDF Storyline Outline – $40.00
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The Storyline opens in a dreary city. As the teacher presents the first two pages in The Curious Garden by Peter Brown, students carefully observe the pictures, taking note and discussing what they see. Students work together to create the city and speculate what it might be like to live there.

A single human is spotted in the city, a young boy walking along holding an umbrella.

Students contemplate why the other city kids are not outside. They create city kid characters and place them inside their apartments, looking out the window.

The teacher continues to read the book and work with students to develop the Storyline.

Readers meet Liam, the boy with the umbrella. He walks through the dreary city and discovers some determined plants, clinging to life. He begins to care for the native plant life, watering, weeding, and pruning daily. Responding to his nurturing, the plants thrive and expand throughout the city. Local wildlife flourishes with support from the new plant life.

Liam finds that he alone cannot care for the blossoming garden. Children from the city join in, becoming gardeners-in-training as they work alongside Liam to support local plant and animal life.

The curious garden, in partnership with the gardeners, transforms the city, notably benefiting the people and wildlife.

The new gardeners break into groups to design and implement additional rewilding projects throughout the city.

Incidents occur in the city. The new gardeners work to solve a variety of problems while maintaining the integrity of their rewilding goals.

The new gardeners design city tours to share what they learned and what they have created with their fellow citizens. They assert the benefits of rewilding and demonstrate how cooperation between nature and humans has transformed the city.

Students use what they have learned to rewild a part of their school or city.

Common Core Language Arts

• Reading Literature
• Reading Informational Text
• Speaking and Listening
• Writing
• Language

Next Generation Science Standards

• Energy
• Earth’s Systems
• Earth and Human Activity
• Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity
• From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes
• Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
• Engineering Design

Oregon Department of Education Social Sciences

• Geography
• History
• Social Science Analysis

Oregon Health Education Standards

• Promotion of Mental, Social, and Emotional Health

Oregon Department of Education Arts

• Visual Arts
• Theater
• Music