You might have seen recent news about the suggestion of banning packed meals
in school in favour of freshly-prepared school dinners. Although I’m unsure how
successful this will be, I strongly agree that eating proper cooked meals at
school is much healthier and more beneficial to children in many aspects.
One thing that can help schools to
provide these quality meals within their current budget is school gardening,
which is also a fantastic activity for the pupils to learn about the
environment, plant biology and just how much work goes into preparing the food
on their plate each day! It can also be an indirect way of encouraging school
children to eat a cooked meal at lunchtime, if they helped grow the vegetables
themselves.
While many kids will be intrigued
by the idea of gardening for the first time, more often than not they’ll get
bored quickly. So how can we keep the
children’s interest in school gardening and motivate them to do it
continuously?
Here, I would like to introduce you to three simple but effective
methods…
1.
Giving
responsibility and flexibility
One of the most effective ways to
motivate children in any topic is by giving responsibility. Like every human
being, when given individual or shared responsibility, children will feel
valued and motivated to succeed.
Teachers can offer each kid, (or
if space is limited a group), a small garden bed that only belongs to him/her/them,
and give them the right and responsibility to choose their own seeds or bulbs
from a list of common vegetables. The variety of choices and their individual
care needs can also increase the knowledge the pupils gain from gardening, since
each child can be given the chance to give a short presentation to the rest of
the class about what they chose to plant and what that plant needed to grow.
Teachers can also allow children
to make their own watering, pest monitoring and weeding plans. If they’re
older, you can even carry out chemistry experiments to determine the soil type
of their individual area to better help them choose what to plant.
2.
Be
creative
From watering cans to spades, bring
them into art class and let children do what they like with them. Children are extremely creative and when
you’re 10 years old, gardening is ten times better when you have a
rainbow-coloured shovel to do it with!
Teachers can also plan art or
biology lessons for the students to draw what they think their plants would
look like after various amounts of time. This can keep the children excited and
interested in gardening after they’ve planted their seeds and are while waiting
for results, which
is when they are most likely to lose interest.
3.
Reward
them from time to time
There are many ways of rewarding
during the course of gardening, and it is not always necessary to choose the best
gardeners. Hand out rewards for first-to-flower, tastiest tomatoes,
best-maintained garden and even most creative vegetable arrangement!
Let the parents know about your
school gardening events and invite them in when it’s time to harvest. Make that
day a big event, and show off everyone’s work in front of all the parents,
teachers and students.
Also, let them enjoy the final
result for longer. Make a photography book for the flowers or plants they
gardened and put up a board in the dinner hall announcing exactly whose
vegetables the school is eating each day.
By this, your pupils will feel
their hard work is being valued and gain a sense of achievement. Next time you
ask who wants to garden with you, you might see an awful lot of arms being
raised up!
About the Author: Jessie
Wang is a freelance writer who blogs about gardening, education and leading an
eco-friendly lifestyle. You can contact her by email.
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