Eco-Muslim Kids In Yorkshire Grow Their Own Garden

Dear teachers,

Please will you make schooling more fun by giving children the tools to grow their own garden?

They don't need a lot of space, a small area of unused lawn or plants pots is great.

In Yorkshire, England, there is Greenhead Park that has given local schoolchildren small 'green' spaces. They visit it on school trips and weekends to water and check on their vegetables. They grow herbs, lettuce, carrots, beetroot and parsnips.


They went back to school to write about what the seeds look like and drew signs for the vegetables.

Children learn so many exciting things in school about where fruit comes from and how to grow vegetables. But most schools haven't created a community garden just for children.

A vegetable patch can be used to teach science and show the various parts of a plant. Or it can be used to test pH scales of soil, to check the nutrients needed to grow particular plants and to help children learn patience.

Some parents can even come in to school and share their gardening experience.

Give children paper cups filled with soil and one sunflower seed and tell them to put them on a windowsill and water. When they grow to 4 inches tall they can plant them outside and watch the sunflower grow to over 5 feet tall. It's amazing.

Please ask the geography teacher to take children on a field trip to where farmers plough the fields and to see how bread is made from wheat.

Please give children the independence and importance to take care of a bit of the earth.

And they will take care of it for the rest of their lives.

Thank you.

Zaufishan
The Eco Muslim