Whether vegetable, flower, or herb gardens, school gardens are gaining ground.
Gardens are becoming increasingly common in schools. While growing interest in outdoor classroom activities and urban greening are driving this expansion, educational gardens are nothing new.
What do they offer students? To what extent can they be used as levers for reforming the school system and promoting genuine co-education with parents? Should they be rolled out across the board?
Sylvain Wagnon, University of Montpellier
The school garden, a long history
Inthe 19thcentury, in a predominantly rural French society, gardening at school was used to teach surveying, science, and technology, offering a way to learn about nature through nature. Jules Ferry's republican school programs emphasized the creation of a garden in every school. Horticulture and practical agriculture were taught to future teachers in teacher training colleges, and then to primary school pupils.
Today, learning about food self-sufficiency remains an educational challenge around the world. The aim is to establish more sustainable systems by adopting the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact launched in 2015: "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life." The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which works to eradicate hunger and promote sustainable agricultural development, offers gardening education in schools. https://www.youtube.com/embed/g0D5ICi6xrA?wmode=transparent&start=0 When asphalt gives way to plants, the schoolyard takes on a whole new dimension (Actu-Environnement, 2022).
After the asphalting and artificialization of school playgrounds in the 1970s-2000s, the current trend toward greening is once again making gardening possible in French schools.
By creating a garden with their students, teachers are participating in the growing "outdoor classroom" movement . School gardens, whether vegetable, flower, herb, sensory, or ecological, offer children the opportunity to experience nature firsthand and learn about environmental issues.
The objective in a school setting is not necessarily to produce and harvest, and vegetable gardens can sometimes be difficult to set up due to the summer harvest period. The primary interest is to be able to observe and learn in tune with the seasons, to take into account the vagaries of the weather, and to raise awareness of the fragility of and respect for the plant environment and biodiversity.
Integrating the garden into learning
Working together in the garden encourages teamwork, communication, and sharing. Students learn to cooperate, resolve conflicts, and make collective decisions. In addition, growing plants and observing their growth promotes patience and perseverance.
Gardening at school also provides an opportunity for practical and interdisciplinary learning. By observing, sowing, cultivating, and harvesting, students acquire concrete knowledge in natural sciences, biology, chemistry, geography, mathematics, and literature. https://www.youtube.com/embed/xqIYcAIfyK4?wmode=transparent&start=0 Ecology at school, an eloquent pilot project, a roadmap: the educational garden (Académie de Corse, 2023)
Numerous scientific studies highlight the benefits of educational gardens in learning. One of the major challenges today is to make this an activity for all students. School gardens are already part of this education in food and taste and fit in with the environmental education approach desired by the Ministry of Education.
Starting an educational garden requires careful planning to determine everyone's responsibilities, how to proceed, the schedule, and the right choice of location, plants, and planting calendar. Currently, the rise in the greening of school playgrounds is a key catalyst for the creation of educational gardens. This trend affects all levels of the national education system, from kindergarten to secondary school.
An educational movement beyond school
Gardens can also become a lever for developing co-education between teachers and parents. This widespread movement is not limited to schools; community gardens, family gardens, shared gardens, and allotment gardens are developing in most municipalities.
Organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and local authorities are initiating and supporting "shared" gardens, which are used by schools during school hours and are open to parents the rest of the time.
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Beyond the practical issue of maintaining the garden during school holidays, this is a unique opportunity for exchange and sharing around concrete activities that make the garden a space for discovery, a true communal space, and a place where children's education can continue. This movement is supported by the European Commission and accompanies this archipelago of initiatives that "tend" towards food self-sufficiency.
The stakes are therefore high, because school gardens represent much more than just a space. They can embody a real educational opportunity and help raise awareness of environmental and social challenges. Gardens should not be exclusively school spaces, but places shared with parents, thereby promoting a more consistent education.
Sylvain Wagnon, Professor of Education Sciences, Faculty of Education, University of Montpellier
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Readthe original article.