The Green Thumbs Club

Nicole Lind
Science coach, Spring Lake Elementary School, Seminole County, Florida

Through this school year, I worked with a group of third through fifth graders in an after school club they named The Green Thumbs Club. These 15 students had to work together to tackle the neglected outdoor space and turn it into a thriving garden. They worked to develop and share ideas to determine common solutions for the garden space. The teaming structures used in our classrooms readily transferred into the club as students maintained respect and listened as much as they spoke. One particularly smile worthy conversation was when I overheard two students casually talking and working in the garden and one boy says, ‘you need to pull that weed over there’. The other student responded with ‘I hear you saying this is a weed but I’m going to have to respectfully disagree because of what Mr. Bob was describing earlier. Can we leave it for now?’ These kids effectively completed their goal of restoring the garden and I couldn’t be more proud of the work they did and how they accomplished it as a team, and I know they’re equally proud of themselves!