Environmental Awareness
Challenging self-discovery through the lens of communal membership, spatial awareness, and so much more
F3 Environmental Awareness Mission Statement:
In youth soccer you have the choice to coach to win the game, or develop the individuals on your team. Very rarely can you do both. At F3 we choose to develop our individuals, every time.
Soccer is a medium, a tool we use to challenge our youth into growth, self-discovery, teamwork and leadership, communal membership, cognitive and spatial awareness, and so much more. As we see success in their personal achievements in these areas, their play on the field (both individually and collectively) begins to show these successes through performances and results (aka wins).
By focusing on the individual, we achieve winning and success.
F3’s Sprouts Program
Driving successful outcomes in all facets of a child’s life also includes the physical world they live in, the food that sustains them, and the nutrients that literally feed their development and growth. This is what F3’s Environmental Awareness Program (EAP) aims to address.
We cannot send our youth off into a final third of life that is barren and not sustainable. The EAP developed the Sprouts Program to get our youth involved, from a young age, with the elements of nature; to establish a connection to our ecosystems, landscapes, and the food they produce. So ultimately, when our youth become adults, they have the tools, resources, and experiences to flourish in a thriving world, not a diminishing one.
What is the Sprouts Program?
The Sprouts program is not intended to be “science class.”
It’s not intended to teach scientific principles on ecology, environmental science, or any other technical subject matter formally found within academia. The purpose of the Sprouts program, and the EAP as a whole, is to facilitate experiences that foster connections. For us this means providing opportunities for the youth, the individual themselves, to spark a connection to whatever element of nature strikes them most. And to do so this means providing a framework, a structure of activities (found within our curriculum/garden notebooks) that guides our youth through experiences that allow them to engage with various parts of themselves; their physical self, their emotional self, their mental self. Not to teach them specific bits of facts, but rather afford them the opportunity to develop themselves, and within themselves, tools that will enable learning and growth for their lifetime, not just time spent in the learning garden.
Every Sprouts session begins with a fresh, healthy snack of fruits and/or vegetables accompanied by an open discussion lead by youth.
Participants then engage with and follow the curriculum developed for the Sprouts program, documented in garden notebooks for each child. Garden notebook activities aim to stimulate and engage the senses, emotions, and expression of feelings for all participants.
Youth will engage with a variety of activities that include observations, documentation through art and words, and physical work using their bodies to connect with the land that helps to sustain them.
The Sprout Program is designed for kids from Pre K through High School, with curriculum specifically tailored to each age group. Each session duration is 45-90 minutes long.
Max Rosenthal
Director of Environmental Awareness
Max, a Gahanna native, is no stranger to the F3 family as he is a founding CEFC coach. His background coaching for CEFC, working at the Boys and Girls Club, and coaching at all levels within the Gahanna Lincoln HS Boys Soccer program (where he still coaches) provides him with the experience of working with youth at every age between 4-18 in an educational role. Max is a graduate of Tel Aviv University with a M.A. in Environmental Studies, and Ohio State University with a B.S. in Landscape Architecture. His areas of focus within his studies were in environmental education and food production, and has a personal area of interest in the intersection of these two practices.
