Can gardening help children grow?

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 psychology.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Professor Sallie Marston and Moses Thompson, who lead the University of Arizona’s School Garden Workshop. They are creating and maintaining school gardens and investigating their impact on children’s well-being.

• This resource also contains an interview with Sallie and Moses and offers an insight into careers in school counselling. If your students have questions for Sallie and Moses, they can send them to them online. All they need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). Sallie and Moses will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Sallie and Moses’ research and challenges them to design a school garden and plan lessons to be taught in it.

• An animation about Sallie and Moses’ work is available through the weblink, along with a downloadable script.

• The article and activity sheet are also available in Spanish through the weblink below.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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