🐝Bee Amigo Gardens: Pollinator Gardens in Schools🐝

Author : Priscila Yang – 2022

Unit Summary
This is a series of activities that can be used in a school’s bee garden club. Throughout these activities, students will learn to appreciate the
incredible biodiversity of bees that exists in the city and realize that bees can be our friends. The goal is that students can learn to not be
afraid of bees, but instead, to love and appreciate bees, and then turn that love into action by creating pollinator friendly habitats and raising
awareness within our school community.

Although these activities have been planned for a high school bee garden club, these activities are flexible and can be adapted to be used
with students in other grades. Activities can also stand alone and can be used in science classes, such as Science 9, Science 10, Life Science
11, or AP Biology, as the content and competencies align nicely with BC Curriculum.
Curriculum links - Curricular Competencies in BC Curriculum for High School Science
Questioning & Predicting
● Demonstrate a sustained intellectual curiosity about a scientific topic or problem: pollinator decline, bee biodiversity cities, bee
friendly gardens
Planning & Conducting
● Assess risks and address ethical, cultural and/or environmental issues associated with their proposed methods and those of others:
creating havens for urban bees, the effects of pesticides & neonicotinoids on bees
Processing & Analyzing Data & Information
● Experience and interpret the local environment: by walking around our school and finding places where plants and pollinators could
thrive, participating in citizen science with plants and bees in our school neighborhood
Evaluating
● Consider social, ethical and environmental implications of findings from their own and
others’ investigations: citizen science with plants and bees in our school neighborhood,
creating bee gardens and caring for native bees
Applying & Innovating
● Contribute to finding solutions to problems at a local and/or global level through inquiry:
creating pollinator gardens and caring for native bees
Communicating
● Communicate scientific ideas, claims, information, and perhaps a suggested course of
action, for a specific purpose and audience, constructing evidence-based arguments and
using appropriate scientific language, conventions, and representations: create awareness
about urban bees & how to help them thrive

A Mason Bee amigo from Priscila’s garden

(P. Yang, 2022)

Opportunities for Extension - links to Content in BC Science Curriculum for High School Science
Science 9:
● reproduction: sexual & asexual reproduction in plants, sexual reproduction in bees
● sustainability: how to create pollinator habitats in cities
Science 10:
● genetic diversity: in plants and native bees vs. European honey bees
● mutations in bees & plants
Life Science 11:
● coevolution: bees & flowers
● classification: plant and insect
AP Biology:
● photosynthesis in plants
● genetics: honeybee and native bee genetics
● evolution: coevolution of bees & flowers
● biodiversity: bumblebee biodiversity in cities
● ecology: impact of pesticides on bees, investigating how cities can be a place of refuge away from agricultural pesticides
● scientific investigations: citizen science, investigating what to plant, where to plant it, how to create a good bee hotel
Approximate Time Needed
● Meeting times will vary depending on the plan for the school’s bee garden.
● In our school, we typically meet once a month or so in the winter, and then weekly in the spring. Volunteers will be needed over the
summer to care for the gardens.

Learning Goals
● Improve student knowledge about plants and pollinators
● Engage students in learning about our own community and pollinator biodiversity in urban areas
● Foster a love for nature and a desire to take action
● Opportunities to spend time outdoors, in place-based, hands-on, inquiry learning

Assessment Summary
Before Project During Project After Project
● Survey students about their attitudes ● Observe students as they
about bees and gardening to participate in gardening, care for ● Survey students on how their attitudes and
determine a baseline Mason bees, and engage in citizen perceptions of urban bees has changed
science. ● Have students complete reflections on their learning
● Have informal conversations and and share as a group
support students as they create
materials to raise awareness about
urban bees
As this project is part of a Bee Garden Club, and not a course, assessment will be different. The focus of the assessment is to measure attitudes and
behaviors regarding bees. Hopefully by the end of the project students will have improved attitudes about bees and the desire to actively create pollinator
friendly habitats and raise awareness about urban bees.
(P. Yang, 2022)
Unit Plan
Activities Materials

Activity 1: 🐝Inspired: What could a bee garden at our school look like?
● Pre-unit survey
Pre-unit survey: Attitudes about plants, pollinators & citizen
science
● Trivia game: Bee curious - What do you know about bees in Metro Vancouver?
● Walk around our school. What can we grow in the space we have? What is the Slides: Bee trivia & photos of bee gardens
best location for plants and for bees?
● Brainstorm: where could we possibly create a bee garden? Handout: Bee curious - with trivia questions & space for
sketching

🐝
Activity 2: Plant a -F-F (bee friendly flower)
● Plant a runner bean or a sunflower
Slides: What makes a good 🐝 -F-F? Examples of pollinator
friendly plants and pollinator gardens.
● Brainstorm, do some research and create a plan for a pollinator friendly garden
● Plant other bee friendly flowers (from seed) or make a plan to purchase plants Plants: Runner bean and/or sunflower seeds, pots with seed
from a local nursery. Make a plan for how we’ll care for our bee garden starting mix, Seeds for a variety of herbs & flowers, small
pots, seed starting mix, or plants from a nursery

🐝
Activity 3: Observant
● Go on a pollinator walk and participate in citizen science by conducting a pollinator
Resource: Bee identification guide

survey Handout: Bee Observant & participate in citizen science

● How many different types of bees can you observe?

● Extension: Create a scientific sketch of a bee and a bee friendly flower

🐝
Activity 4: an Amigo (friend): Care for Mason bees Slides: Bee an Amigo

🐝 🐝
● What do Mason bees need to survive?
● Build an air- -n (air bnb - Mason bee hotel) Materials: milk carton, paper, tape, paint, pebbles or marbles,
● Make a drinking station and provide a source of mud a bowl,
● Watch Mason bees emerge from their cocoons and care for your new bee amigos

🐝 🐝
Activity 5: -ware or -friend?
● Post-unit survey: How have your attitudes about bees changed now that you
Post-unit survey: How have your attitudes about plants,
pollinators & citizen science changed as a result of
know more about them? participating in the bee garden club?
● Bee-ware or Bee-Friend Posters: What can you do to create awareness about
urban pollinators? Work as a team to create posters to help people learn more Slides: Bee-ware or Bee-friend posters
about the incredible biodiversity of bees in Metro Vancouver.

(P. Yang, 2022)