The School Garden Pulse

From Planning to Proving Your School Garden’s Sustainability and Bio Diversity

How To Live On Earth: The Lesson Companion

A free unofficial lesson companion for teachers bringing the documentary How to Live on Earth into and out of the classroom mapped out to GreenComp. Built for biodiversity and sustainability teaching with students aged 11 to 16, it follows the film's three questions: How to value nature, How to feed the future, and How to feel human, and turns each into ready-to-use classroom and field activities.

Every activity is mapped to the EU's GreenComp sustainability framework, with the full framework built in so you can search it, filter by area, and open any competence to see the knowledge, skills and attitudes behind it. Alongside the activities you will find screening notes, curriculum links, and guidance for using the film simply and effectively.

Free to screen on YouTube, and ready to adapt to your own students and setting.

169to1® School Garden Pulse
Term
Where the Content Comes From
  1. Jarau, S. and Benkowitz, D. (eds.) (2026). Sustainability Education in School Garden-Based Learning. Springer, open access, Erasmus+. Cited by chapter throughout.
  2. Biodiversity dimensions draw on chapters 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 15, 16 and 17. The "extinction of experience" idea is from Chapter 1 (after Soga and Gaston).
  3. Companion planting: Chapter 13, compiled from Franck (1991) and Mayer (2022). The roles of common garden creatures follow standard garden ecology alongside the book's chapters on pollinators, soil life and vertebrates.
  4. The Papillon Project, a Norfolk charity that builds school allotments as permanent outdoor learning spaces (registered charity 1189383). StratKIT, School Gardening for Sustainable Food Education (Interreg Baltic Sea Region, EU). New European Bauhaus, The Edible School, Lisbon. Freight Farms, Green Thumbs at School. TGED Foundation, Low-Cost Vertical Models.

Growing guidance is general horticultural advice; conditions vary by climate and site. Reported figures carry the source named beside them. The book itself notes that companion effects differ between authors and should be tested in your own garden.

Lesson Worksheets

How To Value Nature - Student Worksheet

How To Feed The Future - Student Worksheet

How To Feel Human - Student Worksheet

Teacher’s Notes