Ryves Up! uses a variety of activities to help build crucial skills for the participating elementary students.  Students learn about basic science concepts related to plants, such as photosynthesis and how to water and grow plants.  And best of all, the kids have a great time with these activities!  As second-grader Jackson Schommer exclaimed, “I like learning how to grow plants.  We get to water them and take some home.”

Experiments are also run to reinforce concepts that they learn.  Kids partake in activities such as predicting if celery or a white radish will absorb more water, or writing down in journals what they think will happen to several seedlings that are grown either in the light or in the dark.  These experiments make the students think about what they have learned and apply concepts to real life applications.  This increases critical thinking and hypothesis forming skills of the students.

An article from The Hanen Centre discusses why critical thinking is so important.  Critical thinking and language influence each other as children learn.  Critical thinking makes kids use words such as because, if, then, and different verb tenses to expand their language.  This expanded language also improves the ability to critically think and form well-structured statements.  Increased critical thinking abilities also helps improve literacy by allowing kids to problem solve, read between the lines, and connect multiple concepts and ideas.  The kids even bring seedlings back home to grow to continue their learning outside of school and the Ryves Up! program.