Benefits Of School Gardening
In a school garden, school kids are always set to work cultivating vegetable and flower gardens. The school garden is simply an outgrowth of usual school activities. It’s an effort for kids to get away from books and into the outdoors. And it’s a fine-tuning of school activity that’s actually fun.
As part of its social benefits, gardening can help improve social interaction among classmates. Gardening, especially among children, makes them look at the world differently, at life in a different way. Through school gardens, kids can learn how to become more independent, why certain actions are important, and how they can overcome barriers such as shyness or competitiveness. There are several school gardens projects that kids can take up that will allow them to develop their skills and some that will also enable them to explore their creative sides.
A few tips and guidelines first before you undertake school gardening. If you live in a colder place, you may want to choose lightweight plants that don’t need too much maintenance. These would be cacti, oaks, and strawberries. You also have to remember to select bright-colored and flowering plants. Avoid going for dark-colored, dull-looking, and non-flowering ones; instead choose bright colors that will catch the light and make your gardens look great.
School garden classes help focus on the following areas: physical health, mental health, and immunity systems. Gardening helps children build healthy immune systems and builds up their self-esteem. Aside from helping to boost their immune systems, gardening also helps children express themselves through the flowers and plants they put in their gardens.
One of the challenges school children have is poor nutrition and insufficient amounts of vitamins and minerals. This is where gardening helps connect children. It teaches them how to grow their own vegetables and herbs in return giving them valuable health lessons. Gardening also teaches kids how to respect nature and gives them the confidence they need to protect it. When kids see that their garden has natural products, they get excited to know that they themselves can grow these products.
Healthy soils are essential in keeping children active and healthy. Healthy soils help plant root systems grow strong and well established. Children’s healthy soils, on the other hand, could be the foundation of their healthy future. That’s why, school gardens help connect children to develop a healthy lifestyle that will span them for the rest of their lives. Aside from helping to develop a healthy lifestyle, gardening also strengthens students’ immune systems.
By connecting and involving students in the school’s garden project, you are teaching them how to become more involved with the environment. This will further help them understand the need to become more conscious of their impact on the world as they grow older. School gardens also help children learn and enjoy working together in a team. In this way, they come up with better solutions to problems, which gives them better chances of doing good deeds in the community. School gardens also give them the chance to meet and work with older children, making them a learning experience.
School gardens must also incorporate green building and materials. Green building materials such as recycled plastic lumber and compost are used for school gardens to make them more attractive and useful to students and parents. The purpose of using recycled plastic or lumber is to enable kids to learn how to use recyclable resources so that they can make a difference in the world by reducing their carbon footprint. These materials are readily available, cost effective, and very friendly to the earth.
