Description

The school is one of the main places where students acquire and develop their knowledge, behaviors, attitudes, values and skills. School gardens provide a form of direct and practical education where students can see the results of their decisions and actions.

➢ ENVIRONMENT

These gardens, through various activities (tree planting, organic agriculture, pest protection, composting, etc.), are real tools for environmental education.

Indeed, as we have seen in the first part of this manual, school gardens can be seen as levers for dealing with the environment and its issues with students.

➢ SCHOOL SUBJECTS

With the presence of these school gardens, the school plays an important role of initiation and training in several different disciplines. They are real living laboratories where one can study the environment but also the natural sciences and a whole series of other subjects. Indeed, by its interdisciplinary nature, the school garden allows for the study of various subjects, such as :

• Geography :
  Thanks to the origin of the products but also with the learning of orientation, soil erosion, differences in level, etc.
• Geometry and mathematics:
  Gardens make it possible to deal with the notions of size, scale, area, perimeter and this, during the planning of the garden, by delimiting the dimensions necessary for its realization or by calculating its production value, for example.
• Economy :
  School gardens can allow students to keep books of accounts and to establish, at the end of the year, a balance sheet of the garden’s expenses and revenues, if it is used for commercial purposes.
• Science :
  – Observation of “gardened” spaces: They are a good place to study to analyze the chemical composition of the soil; to deal with irrigation and existing systems as well as erosion and ways to avoid it; etc.
  – Conducting scientific experiments: e.g. measuring the percolation time of water between different soils (sandy soil, which contains a lot of sand, and garden soil, which is arable land). This allows us to understand that several parameters have to be taken into account such as the type of soil, the amount of water poured, the duration of watering, the type of filter used, etc.
  – The water cycle: understand each of the phases (observe, question and name them).
  – Botany and biology: gardens allow you to observe the structure of plants, the growth cycle of fruits and vegetables, the diversity of existing plants, etc.
  – Links between nature and man: gardens allow students to observe all the benefits and advantages they can derive from their relationship with nature. School gardens therefore allow students to see which actions are respectful of nature and which are not.
  – Waste recycling and composting, etc.
• Food and nutrition :
  Gardens promote good eating and nutritional habits.
• History, the study of the environment:
  Through the observation of time. Students can establish cyclical chronological links according to seasons, months and plants.
• Market gardening :
  Students will be able to develop technical skills that will also be beneficial to families if they wish to engage in a family vegetable garden and to children for their future professional integration.