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Program
Shooting Challenge
Focus areas
Overview
Students examine the contrast between marigolds and walnut trees as a metaphor for influence within a team, class, family, or community. Marigolds help nearby plants thrive by protecting and strengthening the garden environment, while walnut trees can flourish themselves yet make growth harder for plants around them. The lesson asks students to look beyond individual talent or success and evaluate the effect their presence has on others: Do they encourage, support, protect, and help people grow, or do their attitudes and behaviors drain confidence and make the environment more difficult? Students identify the 'marigolds' in their own lives and choose specific ways to become a more positive influence for others.
Action plan
1. Read the comparison between marigolds and walnut trees and identify how each affects the environment around it. 2. Translate the metaphor into human behaviors: list actions that help people grow and actions that make a group harder to thrive in. 3. Complete the questions assigned through the existing grade-bucket system based on the student's actual grade. 4. Identify one person in your life who acts like a marigold and explain what that person does that helps others. 5. Evaluate your own influence: name one behavior you use that strengthens a group and one behavior you could improve. 6. Choose one deliberate 'marigold action' to practice this week—encourage, include, serve, listen, celebrate someone else, stay positive, or help without seeking credit. 7. Finish the reflection: 'People around me grow when I \\\\_. This week I will _\\\\.'
Coaching lens
The heart of this assignment is environmental influence. A person can be talented, productive, or successful and still damage the people around them. Conversely, a teammate or classmate may not always receive the most attention yet can make everyone around them better through encouragement, reliability, service, optimism, and support. Students should learn to recognize both kinds of influence, choose relationships that help them grow, and take responsibility for the emotional and social environment they create for others.