School garden

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Sustainable Teaching Garden at Tarleton State University

In a school garden, school children learn how to cultivate flowers and vegetable gardens. The school garden is an extension of regular school work. It is an effort to get children outdoors and away from books. It is a healthy, practical learning activity that adds interest and exercise.

History[edit]

The value of school gardens in education has long been recognized in Europe. They were started as early as 1819 in Schleswig-Holstein. In 1869 they were prescribed by law in Austria and Sweden, in Belgium since 1873 and in France since 1880. In the early 20th century, there were 20,000 schools in Austria with gardens, 45,000 in France, 8,000 in Russia, and 2,500 in Sweden. The number in the latter country once was double the present number, but has decreased since the introduction of manual training. School gardening was practically obligatory for the children of the common schools of Belgium, Netherlands, British West Indies, and Ceylon. Many of the foreign governments subsidized the school gardens, offered prizes, and made training in agriculture obligatory for normal school graduates.

School gardens have been promoted as an important aspect of manual training and industrial education. It is a phase of manual training to teach children to use the tools and implements of the garden, to prepare the soil, and carefully cultivate plants. It is an outdoor physical training combined with intelligent mental effort quite equal in its effects to shop work.

Some universities in the United States, like Cornell, the University of Illinois, Ohio State University, and Louisiana State University, have taken up the problem of school agriculture, country life, and scientific farming in earnest. Pamphlets are published by experts of agriculture dealing with important phases of school agriculture and school gardens, in particular Jewell's Agricultural Education (Bulletin 368, U. S. Bureau of Education).

Curriculum role[edit]

The school-garden has an important relation to several curriculum areas. The first of these is nature study. There is no better way of bringing children into contact with plant life than by raising flowers and vegetables in the garden. The children get out of doors, prepare the soil, plant the seed, observe the growth of plants, cultivate them through the season, and finally observe the growth and ripening of the fruit. This whole cycle of growth and change is the most fundamental thing in plant study.

Secondly, the garden has a very important place in the study of geography. In the home geography in the early grades classes of children are required to visit the gardens and study the processes of cultivation and marketing the products. In this way, the principles of gardening lead on to learning about agriculture, scientific farming, and fruit raising. Children can be taught about the principles involved in farming, the raising of corn and other grains, the feeding of cattle, dairying and butter-making, fruit-culture, as of berries, stone-fruits, apples, and pears. Scientific agriculture and fruit-raising are based on principles of careful selection of seed and of wise cultivation, of fertilizing and preserving soils, of grafting, pruning and caring for fruit trees, and dealing with insect pests.

The school garden has an important relation to esthetics and design. Floriculture, landscape gardening, tree-planting and fruit-culture appeal to the sense of beauty. The whole yard and garden together need to be planted and laid out on principles of taste and attractiveness.

Perhaps the most important relation of the school garden is that to the home. When children become interested in the school garden, they become more inclined to want to raise a garden at home in their own backyard and perhaps flowerbeds and trees in the front yard. This relates in many ways to the necessities and comforts of the home and teaches children the origins of the many food products that they may take for granted. The whole town may take on a new appearance, in its yards and gardens, on account of this interest developed in the school garden. Beauty and utility are combined; the home table is supplied with vegetables and beautified by the flowers which the children themselves raise.

The educative effect upon the child of carrying out the required activities through the whole season and growth cycle is also useful. The cultivation of plants requires constant attention, forethought, intelligence, self-reliance, and a kind of originality; difficulties are to be met and overcome. Insects infest the plants and must be gotten rid of; chickens scratch up and spoil the garden and a fence is needed for protection; a dry spell calls for some plan of watering; weeds quickly take possession of a garden; and the child must be intelligent and thoughtful in meeting such difficulties.

Many progressive normal schools in all parts of the world are taking up the initiative of school-gardens, both for the teachers and for the children. Young teachers are set to work to learn the whole problemare trained in the full process, so that they may later guide the children in garden work.

School gardens can also be linked to the curriculum in any grade through science, social studies, math, arts, language arts and more. It helps students feel connected to place and is a great example of place-based learning. Having students garden is experiential learning which can involve the whole school and larger community, through involving parents, community partners, and elders from the community. It creates an opportunity for intergenerational learning, where people of different ages can come together to grow food and work towards a sustainable environment and community.

Through school gardens, students learn to work the land and create a food garden in which they can grow food such as lettuce, potatoes, kale, and peas. Students learn about local food and what grows in their environment. It helps to create a connection to food and get students thinking about where their food comes from and what it takes to grow it. It supports better nutrition in students and can incorporate lessons on healthy eating. This real-world, hands-on learning has proven to be very popular with students and schools. The schoolyard can be an extension of the classroom. It connects students to the natural world and helps create responsible caretakers of the planet. School gardens ultimately contribute to connections between students, teachers, community, food, nature, and sustainability.

STEM Education[edit]

School gardens can extend far beyond the growing of vegetables and produce to incorporate more complex ecological STEM systems. By adding rainwater collection systems, photovoltaic panels, composting systems, methane digesters, tiny houses, and other circular systems, a school garden can begin to function as a robust educational land lab. Food, energy, shelter, sanitation, and water can all be provisioned in a school garden that has the right circular systems in operation.

A school garden can be a powerful STEM instructional component within a larger educational land lab. Ecology, biology, agriculture, energy systems, culinary arts, climate science, soil science, and animal husbandry can all function as cross-curricular topics within a school garden land lab.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  • This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainCharles Alexander McMurry (1914). "School-Garden, The" . In Beach, Chandler B. (ed.). The New Student's Reference Work . Chicago: F. E. Compton and Co.

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