Did you get one of our Making a Mint packs? No? How sad. Unfortunately all the packs have now gone. Yes all 5000 of them! Who-hoo! There must be a serious amount of mint being grown out there now. Anyway we thought you might like to hear what some of you are up to …
Sue Welch of Easton Royal School tells us
“Thought you might like to know about a Produce Challenge I have set my class. The challenge was inspired by the Making a Mint challenge. I teach in a small rural village school that only has 2 classes. I teach all the children in KS2. As we were studying plant growth this term as part of Science I thought I would approach it from a different angle to the usual angle of looking at Bean growth etc.
The children have been put into groups of 4 and have been given a small amount of seeds, some seedlings, I had grown, and a budget of £10 that our PTA have loaned them. They have been challenged to grow as many plants that they can to either sell on or sell produce from. We are going to have a plant sale near the end of term and invite parents, friends and local villagers to come and buy.
The challenge has really got the children buzzing. We started it off on the first day of term by planting the seeds I had given them and then I demonstrated how to prick out seedlings and re-pot larger plants. They then had a go at this. They were then given some time to come up with a company name and do some research on vegetables, fruits and flowering plants that they might like to grow.
On the Friday we visited the local garden centre to purchase seeds or small plants - all the decisions were made by the group. Last week we had a mass planting session and the library and the classroom now look like a giant nursery - with plants and seed trays every where.
The aim of the project, apart from teaching the children the science behind plant growth, is to get them inspired about growing their own produce, to get them to think more carefully about what they eat and where it comes from, to teach them how to budget with money and to think about recycling - (as well as using actual pots we are experimenting with plastic packaging, juice cartons, cardboard tubes etc) and of course composting. It also ties in nicely with our Healthy Schools' Programme.
We have of course planted the Mint seeds that you sent us - so we hope to be able to sell that too. One group have named themselves Happy Herbs and are going into herb production - inspired by the free mint seeds.
I will let you know how the children get on.”
Please do, Sue! And if anyone else has any news to share on the weird and wonderful way they are using their mint then please send us an email with the words MINT NUGGETS in the subject line, to planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk.
Surely not. Something even your best friend won’t tell you? Actually your breath isn’t ‘bad’ as such. But the mixture of gases we breathe out is very different to the air we breathe in. Our bodies need oxygen to live and we get that from the air that we breathe. The process of respiration converts the oxygen to CO2. So the mixture we breathe out has more carbon dioxide (CO2) than the air we breathe in.
