School Programs- our 13th year!
Also see Community Programs

We feel that children can best learn about nature by actually being in nature. Our programs provide experiential education in an incredible natural classroom. Our 30-acre “classroom” includes meadows, wetlands, and woodlands.

Early education (preschool - grade 2), elementary (grades 3-5), and middle school programs serve students from all three school divisions in the Rockbridge area.  Programs are alligned with the State Standards of Learning and Early Foundations of Learning Standards. Preschool – 6th graders record their observations in field journals. 3rd – 4th graders rotate in small groups through three hour-long sessions on site at Boxerwood. During their group lunch, students compost or recycle almost all of their “trash.” 4th – 6th grade river programs take place at local streams.  We extend the school-time programs to a joint program with the YMCA for students in after-school day care at Waddell and Central.

Teaching staff members are trained as "Master Naturalists." Volunteers (you could be one too!) from the local community and universities join in on a regular basis.

Watch videos about our Education Program.

High praise for Boxerwood's education program:

• Six Area Schools Recognnized as Virginia Naturally Schools, Spring 2011 for leadership in environmental education initiatives for efforts taken to encourage environmental literacy and stewardship [and their] multi-grade partnerships with Boxerwood.  [Boxerwood] facilitates hands-on learning in the field, and additional environmental activities back at school. 
• Noting the high Science scores [State SOLs] throughout the division, Crance [Cindy Crance, the division's director of instruction] credited our relationship with Boxerwood which helps us support science. For the past several years, county middle-school and elementary students have traveled to the educational garden for hands on encounters with nature, all carefully calibrated to the requirements of the state SOLs.
• The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the Valley Regional Office (DEQ-VRO) recognized Boxerwood for… “an amazing job planning educational field days consistent with the Virginia Standards of Learning, that are incredibly well organized and coordinated... DEQ-VRO is excited to continue our support of Boxerwood’s commitment to educating the next generation about Virginia’s streams and rivers”
• Boxerwood Gardens has been a good neighbor for our community. This horticultural treasure just outside Lexington is the setting for unique, high quality, hands-on instruction about nature for students and their teachers from all three Rockbridge area school systems. For more than 10 years, Boxerwood has provided nature education lessons for our youth. During the current school year, more than 2,000 children in more than 100 classrooms from all 12 schools in Rockbridge County, Buena Vista and Lexington will participate in this nature-based programming. The lessons support the Virginia Standards of Learning, ensuring that each local student has a watershed experience before graduating from high school. Educators laud the lessons, saying they’ve helped raise students’ test scores in science and enhance their appreciation of nature.The Lexington News-Gazette, March 31, 2010