The Michigan 4-H Children’s Garden opened in 1993 as one of the five major gardens of the Michigan State University Horticulture Demonstration Gardens. The half-acre garden features 30 special themed landscape and play areas, including a dinosaur garden, a pizza garden, a Peter Rabbit garden and the Alice in Wonderland Maze, which leads to a secret garden.
The garden’s mission is to promote an understanding of plants and the role they play in daily lives, nurture the wonder of a child’s imagination and curiosity, and provide a place for the enrichment and delight of its more than 150,000 annual visitors. In 1999, the 4-H Children’s Garden expanded its educational mission by integrating technology into the garden’s learning experiences.
The 4H Children's Garden goal is to elegantly integrate technology to extend the benefits of the garden to make it accessible worldwide, anytime day or night, winter or summer. It allows parents, teachers, and kids to visit the virtual garden before and after going to the real garden.
The kids' tour is an ever expanding project which links to 9 years of professional and student software development. The interface is incredibly dense (600+ links) with a single screen acting as a portal to myriad Flash panoramas, QTVRs garden QTVR eCards, garden videos, interactive games and stories, garden vocabulary in American Sign Language, and information for teachers and parents. Visit the Michigan 4-H Children's Garden Web site
The Michigan 4-H Story