School Garden Benefits: Health Promotion and Environmental Conservation

Garden-based learning promotes environmental awareness, health, and wellness across the school community and beyond. In this article, we review the literature on the benefits of school gardening and describe firsthand experiences for garden success. By sharing lessons learned, our aim is to inspire school nurses to join forces with like-minded teachers and staff or take the lead to build capacity in their school for gardening and a green culture dedicated to the conservation of natural resources.

Sustainability and education through social networks. Presence and visibility of the school garden on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

The use of school gardens as an educational practice in Spanish educational centers has recently regained greater prominence and significance, especially within the framework of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development. However, the presence and visibility of school gardens as well as the ways in which centers use them remain little known to the educational community. Furthermore, in a world where our lives are increasingly governed by the digital and the Internet, social networks arise as fantastic tools to give prominence and disseminate the educational actions which take place in schools. Seeking to ascertain the extent to which school gardens are visible and present on social media, as well as how schools use those school gardens, we carried out the collection and analysis of the last 100 posts appearing with the hashtag #huertoescolar on three social networks: Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. It follows from the results obtained not only that educational centers record these practices preferably on Twitter, then on Facebook and finally on Instagram, but also that they utilize school gardens mostly to ensure the practical application of the theoretical contents taught in different academic subjects as well as to encourage students’ environmental awareness. Greater use of school gardens is still needed to work on Sustainable Development Goals, though.

School garden as a learning alternative in the era of COVID-19 pandemic

Indonesia as an agrarian country faces several obstacles to achieving food sovereignty, due to the limited number of the younger generation involved in the agricultural sector. Most of the farmers are elderly with limited capacity. Therefore, as early as possible, it is necessary to make efforts to increase interest in farming among elementary school students through School Garden activities. The introduction of the School Garden becomes an interesting lesson because students can carry out farming activities independently. This community service program was carried out at SD Model located in Ngemplak, Sleman, Yogyakarta. This program aims to introduce the School Garden through urban farming so that it can foster interest in agriculture. The methods used include presentations with video tutorials and giving farming modules. The results of the implementation of the community service program showed that 97.7% of students liked the introduction of the School Garden activity and 81.4% of students felt that these activities foster their interest in agriculture.

COMPOSTING MODEL WITH THE REUSE OF ORGANIC WASTE IN RURAL SCHOOLS

School institutions become producers of organic waste as a result of the daily consumption of school meals offered to students during the school year. An alternative, so that this material is not incorrectly released into the environment, is the implementation of a composting model that will reuse organic waste, generating humus, which will serve as fertilizer for the implementation of a vegetable garden in the school in the rural area. This work aims to propose a composter model in a School in the Rural Area of Manaus for the reuse of organic waste, to develop a prototype of composter for the production of humic substances and mineral nutrients for the creation of gardens, to prepare the manual with guidelines for the correct and sustainable management of the composting plant and the school garden and implementing the garden system through the composting process using school organic waste. The work is a case study that proposes to implement a prototype of compost for the production of humic substances and mineral nutrients for the construction of a school garden. It is intended that the proposal raises the awareness of the school community for the correct management and reuse of solid waste generated by the school and arouse in students and teachers the interest in environmental education and behavior change for the preservation of the environment in which they live.

Šolski vrtovi v Pomurski regiji

School-based learning has a long tradition in Slovenia and is now a globally recognized movement. We present the operation of school gardens in the most agricultural region of Slovenia, the Pomurje region, and their inclusion in the pedagogical process of science subjects. Half (19 out of 38) of the primary schools in Pomurje have school gardens. The decision to establish a school garden depends on the good will of the school management and the voluntary interest of the teachers. It would be necessary to include school gardening in science curricula. Garden-related activities contribute to the development of Pomurje as an important agricultural region.

Education From a Gardener’s Perspective

Nature has much to teach if we will be attentive and learn from her. In Fall 2018, a school of social work professor designed a new course to teach across three schools—social work, education, and the seminary. To integrate faith and learning, this professor designed this course based on the four permaculture (permanent agriculture) design principles: care of people; care for the earth; fair share; and transitional ethic. In this class, graduate students took on community challenges—food insecurity and K-12 student disengagement from learning—to help them live out their vocation while also supporting the development of a local school garden. Ultimately, with this affective, embodied, creative, and reflective pedagogy, learning was experienced more holistically and in a more relevant manner to everyday life.