At Plant a Seed we emphasize that children have ample opportunity to learn through their own experiences in a sensory environment with inspiration from the teacher. The environment is an authentic and active farm, where the students have the opportunity to accompany the people who practice their skills on site throughout the year. Along the way, the students experience how a small seed is a living organism that can transform into a wheat plant, a beetroot or a pumpkin. They learn that you cannot rush nature. They learn how to water, nourish and look after the plants with care - because only when they are given the right conditions can they grow and thrive.

Plant a Seed combines practical teaching in the principles of nature, along with practical scientific tools and skills. This is underpinned by exercises in self awareness and humanistic insights into what it means to be human and to be part of a family of communities. After a day a week course for 21 weeks, the children can harvest new seeds and more confidence in their own abilities and ideas. The long course also provides room for reflection and the building of good and secure relationships with the classmates and the adults who accompany the children.

The teaching takes place at the food producer Vibevadgaard close to Lejre town. It is a collaboration between the teachers from the participating schools and the teachers from Plant a Seed.

The pedagogical framework

The educational framework in Plant a Seed focuses on learning by practice, skilled teaching and the students' own motivation. We work on two pathways - personal inner nature and Nature itself. There is focus on forming a relationship between the two.

The goal is for children to experience early on that they can directly impact the world around them and create positive change with the mindset of sustainability and strong community. We try to nurture the children's inner motivation to look after nature and understand themselves as part of a larger community. Throughout the course, we have a special focus on the children's well-being via relationship building. The students experience what it means to collaborate, including with those they don't usually group with.

The teaching and activities are organized based on two pathways aiming to create a relationship with nature and the child's inner nature. The two intentions are woven together during the 21 weeks and are expressed through various activities during the teaching day.

On the farm, we have access to several different learning rooms: the field; the meadow and the forest form the nature setting for both cultivation, experimentation and cooking. The forest room, with stumps around the campfire, is where the teaching day always begins and ends. In the large yoga tent, students practise self awareness and relationships through play, movement and exercises inspired by yoga and mindfulness. We also have access to the farm's natural materials laboratory, which forms the framework for natural science experiments. In the laboratory, students experiment using flasks, pipettes and test tubes. The small experiments can be, for example, investigating what a berry consists of or how to extract colour from flowers.

The teaching follows the Year's Wheel – from April to October – which creates a natural framework for the activities and focuses on nature's cyclical change processes.