Young Urban Farmers: Plastic recycling

Over a period of two years (2019-2021) Green Lab in partnership with Inspire EBP, a Hackney based charity, hosted an education programme to teach KS2 primary school children the basics of urban farming and sustainability supporting the charity and their STEM-based ‘iDiscover’ programme.

The programme provided a hands-on experience teaching the principles of recycling, plant biology, hydroponics, microgreens and creative drawing. The sessions were hosted inside our Green Lab Incubator, designed specifically for messy workshops surrounded by leafy greens and small scale agriculture systems.

Throughout the 90 minute workshops the children learnt to recycle a 500ml water bottle into a minature farm for microgreens, using coir, perlite, knitting wool and a choice of two seed types. Combining this with an art exercise the KS2 children create animal faces for their bottles, with the fully grown microgreens appearing as ‘hair’ to complete the session.

The workshops were part of broad educational strategy Green Lab provided for schools, young adults, undergraduates and commercial organisations in the UK and Europe – for more information on our programme contact us.