Creative Gardening as a STEM Club Activity more

Science notes The Clubbers’ Guide Linda Scott and Sue Howarth With, it is hoped, better weather on its way as we head towards summer, there should be opportunities to hold more STEM club activities outside. There will always be some activities, such as rocket launches, that need to be held outside because of safety requirements but some activities are suggested here that could involve STEM club members in longer term, practical activities: creative gardening. There is little scope in the curriculum for longterm projects such as growing food, so STEM club sessions could provide the regular time to set up and maintain a garden. There are multiple benefits and many science links in gardening, especially if a creative approach is taken. The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has a 3 minute video, outlining its science strategy and some of the science of gardening, which could be used as part of an introduction to a club gardening project to reinforce the links between theory and practice (see Websites). Many pupils will never have experienced growing their own food, so following a plant’s life cycle from seed to table could be a novel Creative gardening as a STEM club activity experience and will almost guarantee engagement. The need to plant at particular times of year links to theory from biology, for example light and other abiotic factors acting as limiting factors for plant growth. Soil pH and plant mineral requirements bring in chemistry. Most watering systems will use principles of physics, and garden layout or container design could involve both design and technology and mathematics, with the possibility of emphasising sustainability if recycled materials are used. Even schools without much in the way of grounds should be able to fit in some containers to enable gardening to happen and there are likely to be benefits to the whole school in terms of an improved school environment. The gardeners themselves are likely to gain in many ways, including planning ahead, patience, ideas of timescales, team-working, project management, increased knowledge of where food comes from if planting fruits and vegetables as well as possible opportunities for enterprise if selling the produce, and much more. The RHS has been particularly proactive in encouraging school gardening (Table 1) and, after one year of their campaign, commissioned the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) to evaluate the impact of school Figure 1 A STEM Ambassador working with students from Tudor Grange Academy, Worcester 18 SSR March 2012, 93(344) Figure 2 Students with their broad bean plants before planting out in raised beds Science notes Table 1 Organisations providing help for pupils as gardeners Who Eco-Schools What International award programme guiding schools ‘on their sustainable journey, providing a framework to help embed these principles into the heart of school life’. A network of schools and communities across England committed to ‘transforming food culture’, including ‘reconnecting pupils with where their food comes from’. Further information Free registration. Rewards for the school at every stage – awards, certificates, logos and flags. Raising school profile. The support of resources such as ‘The Pod’ (see Websites). This is an EDF Energy education programme designed to help schools become more sustainable. Free registration and an awards scheme. An introduction pack full of useful information and resources. Online resources. An organic growing manual. Access to free courses and training. Automatic membership of ‘Garden Organic for Schools’. Advice on starting a school gardening club. Although the leaflet is aimed at primary schools, the basics of starting a flower and vegetable garden are useful at all stages. Information is provided on planning the garden and advice is given on basic gardening techniques. A garden calendar is provided to help teachers plan how to fit the project into the school year. Flowers and vegetables that are easy to grow are suggested. Food For Life Partnership Food Up Front Field Studies Council (FSC) PDF of advice which could be used as posters. Gardening for Primary Schools leaflet (£3.50). The Growing Schools Garden Model garden to visit; website This garden is in Birmingham at the Botanical Gardens. with video for those who cannot Created with the help of thousands of pupils across visit. the country. It is distinctive because pupils not only provided the inspiration but also designed and made many of its features and grew some of its plants. The aim is to raise the profile of gardens as a natural, sustainable resource that has the capacity to offer curricular, social and emotional benefits to pupils. Encourages and supports schools to develop and actively use a school garden. Resources provided via a website and training days for teachers. Free start-up kit, including seeds, following free registration on website. Rewards and certificates for progress using a benchmarking scheme. Regional advisers. The website provides instructions for making (and growing) willow arches and hanging baskets, as well as online guides for identifying trees and shrubs. It also has plenty of laboratory-based plant practicals that might help to answer some queries that arise from gardening. These range from primary practicals through to those suitable for A-level. SSR March 2012, 93(344) 19 Royal Horticultural Campaign for School Society (RHS) Gardening, supported by Waitrose. Science and Plants in Schools (SAPS) An organisation, co-funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, that creates opportunities for teachers and pupils to find out more about plants and to become more interested in plant science. Science notes gardening on schoolchildren’s learning and behaviour. Although most (over 80%) of the 6000 schools involved were primary schools, the report still provides interesting reading as it suggests that taking part in gardening activities ‘boosts child development, teaches life skills and makes kids healthier and happier’ (taken from the RHS summary of Passy, Morris and Reed, 2010). There are many organisations that provide help, advice and resources for schools and clubs wishing to encourage pupils to garden. Some of these are given in Table 1, and the web links are provided in the Websites list at the end of the article. The range of entries, including those from a mix of academies, colleges and other secondary schools, does not merely demonstrate the creativity of the pupils involved, it also illustrates the wide range of ways in which staff can involve different groups of pupils in the project. Planning garden layouts involves pupils in a range of mathematics and IT skills, and budding architects and town planners, as well as horticulturalists, can get drawn into initial discussions and subsequent construction management. At any stage, but perhaps to give a boost at the start, a STEM Ambassador can be invited along to provide both encouragement and professional expertise. Science and mathematics are also embedded in decisions about choosing and growing the plants for the garden to ensure that sufficient plants will be ready, together with their respective beds and containers, by the target date. Producing a giant Gantt chart (Table 2) for the period of the project is a useful way of focusing club members on immediate tasks while providing a countdown to the ‘big day’. A similar element of pace and purpose could be introduced to any club garden project by setting a challenge such as redesigning an area to meet an agreed timescale. A particular event could be used to get the creative gardening under way, such as producing a special landscape feature to commemorate a school anniversary or perhaps Designing gardens to celebrate or commemorate an event The focus on ‘school gardens’ in this article was inspired by the stunning range of entries to the School Garden Design Challenge at the Malvern Spring Gardening Show, Worcestershire. Held each May, the organisers set a different theme for the School Garden Challenge each year. In 2011, the theme was ‘Chemistry’ (Figure 3), reflecting the UNESCO International Year of Chemistry. Just like their professional and semiprofessional counterparts, the school gardens have to be in top condition by a predetermined judging date and this introduces project management skills to the aesthetic design and cultivation skills of the garden design challenges. Figure 3 One of the 2011 School Garden Design Challenge entries, on the theme of Chemistry 20 SSR March 2012, 93(344) Science notes Table 2 Sample Gantt chart for a garden design project Task Research plants Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Plant seeds Decide design Make frames Pot up seedlings Borrow props Link with other years ? ? the cultivation of wasteland left as the result of a new building project before the official opening of the building. Less dramatic, but with just as much impact, would be the adoption of a neglected patch of the school grounds and its transformation into a diverse habitat capable of supporting a wide range of local wildlife. Alternatively, another launch idea for gardening activities could be National Waste Week (12–18 March 2012; see Websites), when a compost heap could be started, or Green Britain Day in May or June 2012 (see Websites for more details). Students’ initial garden designs could be developed by marking out the area available in situ using line-marking paint, playground chalk or pegs and ropes or by simulating the garden space indoors using tape as a mock-up. Any available props can be used to represent shapes and positions of proposed plants and other features in the garden, with hoops and cones from the Physical Education Department being particularly useful at this stage. Developing a sense of what the 3-D finished product will look like is really motivating for club members and also provides an introduction to the range of specialist jobs that pupils can then get involved in for the next stage of the project. For IT enthusiasts, a programme such as the relatively easy-to-use, and free, drawing tool Google SketchUp can produce 3-D plans of the proposed garden space. However, simpler 2-D plans that everyone can work from can be achieved even more easily using the basic shapes available in most common presentation programmes, or even with a ‘pencil and paper’ exercise. The example in Figure 4 shows how a professional design, taken from the BBC Gardeners’ World website, can be reproduced using the layering of simple geometrical shapes using Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. If pupils need more inspiration, they could be shown the winning entry for the Child category of the RHS competition to help design a garden to sit within the new Olympic Park in east London (see Websites). Involving older students in the gardening project Science clubs can be dominated by key stage 3 pupils (ages 11–14) but, if a gardening project involves significant landscaping or the construction of features such as raised beds, fencing or pergolas, or potential edible products, then older pupils may be keener to be involved. Pupils interested in art, design and technology, food technology, mathematics and other curriculum subjects may also be willing to lend their expertise. Not only does this strengthen staff liaison between collaborating subjects, it also provides opportunities for pupils to work in client and consultant roles in which the power base switches according to the focus of the negotiations, with perhaps younger pupils adopting the ‘expert’ role with regard to the cultivation and presentation SSR March 2012, 93(344) 21 Science notes of the plants and older pupils being the experts in choices of construction materials and methods. Entrepreneurship can be introduced by selling off spare plants to staff and parents, so recouping some of the costs of buying seeds, compost or gardening tools. The gardening need not stop with the end of summer and the holidays. A garden that has been well set up initially can be a permanent and sustainable feature that can continue to grow and which has the potential to be incorporated into mainstream lessons through the study of its biodiversity as it matures. The autumn term can be used to plan ahead for the following summer and further successful and creative gardening projects. Advice about safety and sensible precautions to do with gardening in school grounds may be obtained from CLEAPSS (see Websites). Acknowledgements Special thanks to Sue Hodgson-Jones, Education Officer at the Three Counties Agricultural Society, The Three Counties Showground, Malvern, Worcestershire, for providing Figures 1 and 2 of students working with a STEM Ambassador in their school vegetable garden as part of a recent ‘Grow and Cook’ initiative and also for Figure 3, showing one of the 2011 school garden competition entries. Schools in the West Midlands may like to know that the 2012 Malvern Spring Gardening Show will be held on 10–13 May, with Reference Passy, R., Morris, M. and Reed, F. (2010) Impact of School Gardening on Learning; Final Report Submitted to the Royal Horticultural Society. Slough: National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER). Available at: apps.rhs. org.uk/schoolgardening/uploads/documents/Impact_of_ school_gardening_on_learning_821.pdf. Websites BBC Gardeners’ World: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/ b006mw1h. CLEAPSS: www.cleapss.org.uk. Eco-Schools – School Grounds: www.keepbritaintidy.org/ ecoschools/aboutecoschools/ninetopics/schoolgrounds. Field Studies Council: www.field-studies-council.org. Food for Life Partnership: www.foodforlife.org.uk/ Whatyoucando/Visitafarm.aspx. Food Up Front: www.onepotpledge.org/pdfs/ Figure 4 Garden plan produced using shapes from Microsoft Word the theme for the School Garden Challenge being ‘Sustainability for All’. More information and/or an application form can be obtained from 01684 584924 or threecounties.co.uk/springgardening. The full list of RHS national and regional shows is available at www.rhs.org.uk/ shows-events. SchoolsGardeningClub.pdf. Google SketchUp: sketchup.google.com/intl/en/industries/ education.html. Green Britain Day: www.jointhepod.org/campaigns/greenbritain-day. The Growing Schools Garden: www. thegrowingschoolsgarden.org.uk. The Pod: www.jointhepod.org. RHS Campaign for School Gardens: apps.rhs.org.uk/ schoolgardening/default.aspa. RHS – Science Strategy: www.rhs.org.uk/science. RHS winning entry in design competition for the Olympic Park: www.rhs.org.uk/Competitions/Great-BritishGarden-Competition/Child-entry--Hannah-Clegg. Science & Plants for Schools – Identifying British Trees and Shrubs: www-saps.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/trees/index.htm. Waste Week: www.jointhepod.org/campaigns/waste-week. Linda Scott and Sue Howarth are both senior lecturers in science education at the Institute of Education, University of Worcester. Linda Scott is also manager of STEM Support Services. Emails: l.scott@worc.ac.uk; s.howarth@worc.ac.uk 22 SSR March 2012, 93(344)