Explore how making terrariums can teach you more about your Inner Ecosystem (your brain)

Join us for a creative, hands-on workshop where terrarium-making meets neuroscience.

You’ll create three miniature terrariums to take home, each with a different style paired with an introduction to a different brain-related theme and a question to reflect on as you build.

No prior plant knowledge or neuroscience experience needed, just curiosity and a willingness to get your hands a little earthy.

Three jars, three moments of reflection:

1. Foundations: memory and attention.

Begin with different coloured layered sand, while exploring what we notice, what we hold on to and what we let go.

“What do I choose to notice, keep and let go?”

2. Growth: learning and change.

Add small plants and decorative details while exploring neuroplasticity: the brain’s capacity to change with experience.

“What small, repeated actions help me grow?”

3. Balance: stress and regulation.

Bring your miniature ecosystems together while reflecting on stress regulation and the conditions that help you feel steady.

“What helps my system stay steady under pressure?”

Throughout the session, we’ll use terrariums as a creative metaphor, not a literal model of the brain, to make space for learning, conversation and personal reflection. A terrarium does not thrive because it is forced to grow. It thrives because its conditions: light, moisture, substrate, space, and time, are balanced. Similarly, attention, memory, habit change, and stress regulation depend less on willpower alone and more on the conditions we repeatedly create.

What’s included:

Three mini terrariums to make and take home

A selection of plant cuttings and live moss

All tools and materials

Step-by-step guidance

Three bite-sized neuroscience themes

A cotton bag and takeaway reflection cards

Part of: the MNB Winter Craft Market!

Come away with three tiny worlds, new ideas to reflect on and something you’ve made with your own hands, and potential Christmas gifts!

Description supplied by the event organiser.