Stems in S.T.E.M.

What gardeners do in the off-season depends on the gardener. Some people pore over seed, bulb and nursery catalogues. Some people bring plants indoors to dry and transform into sachets. As we enter the shortest days of the year, Project Lab participants continue to draw connections between our needs and wants in everyday life and the ways in which working with and caring for plants can be interlaced into our daily routines. Taking time to stop and smell the roses (and asters, carnations, eucalyptus, and many other plants) in the middle of winter can bring comfort and joy during an otherwise gray day. Arranging the colors, shapes, and smells of these flowers for an hour or so turned out to be yet another way of practicing mindfulness. And getting hands-on with flowers turns out to be a good way to approach botany and learning about the reproductive parts of flowering plants.

Floral Arranging

Valaree Logan

Last week, as a part of our ongoing practice of mindfulness, we reviewed some of the ways we’ve practiced mindfulness thus far. Students began to name a few activities we’ve done — yoga indoors, yoga outdoors on the mats, meditation, verbalizing and sharing our feelings in the moment, movement videos, and calming jars. We talked about how they feel during those times and how practicing mindfulness has benefitted them.

An 8th grade student shared that our mindfulness exercises helped her to know how to calm down. They also teach us how to control our emotions so that they don't control us. We then turned to the concept of color psychology — the idea that colors can influence the way we feel. RED can alarm us, warn us to stop, or signal love and passion. How colors take on meaning, we said, can also be a matter of culture. Depending on where a person lives, different colors can take on different meanings. I then suggested that arranging flowers could be another form of practicing mindfulness. Let the colors draw you in, I suggested. And you’ll find yourself working with the colors that you need to be working with today.

And then we began! With all the colors of the rainbow laid out before us, as well as glasses and vases of different sizes, and some nice sharp pruning snips, we began our day’s project.

With a spectrum of flowers spread out in rainbow order, Val launches The Flower Unit.

Before the day was over, our entire middle school pod was filled with gorgeous arrangements. Students were so pleased with what they’d created, several students pulled their arrangements into bouquets and took them home as gifts for family members. It was a great day!