School gardens and beyond as learning environments - print version

L a n d L e a r n : School gardens and beyond … as learning environments

image: carrots

image: tomatoes and green house

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School gardens and beyond … as learning environments

Gardens in the school grounds or the local community are exciting learning environments for students at all levels and across the curriculum. School gardens, whether vegetable, indigenous or wetland can provide opportunities for learning experiences focussed on food and farming, where our food comes from, sustainable production of food, environmental management, and the connection each of us has with the land.

LandLearn provides activities and resources to support learning in the classroom and in different outside environments. LandLearn encourages integrated curriculum about farming for food and fibre production to increase students' understanding and valuing of agriculture and its contribution to them as individuals, to the community and to the nation - socially, economically and environmentally.

Some suggestions for integrated curriculum outcomes

» Students plan and design, build, prepare and plant, harvest, cook and eat a vegetable garden in the school grounds or at a community garden site and / or at home. Through this experience and the associated activities they can achieve personal, social and environmental learning.

»	Cross-curricula projects with Food Technology, SOSE, Arts and English can enhance student understanding, and provide cultural learnings by investigating foods of different cultures, how it is cooked, and associated traditions and customs. Visit markets, localities associated with foods of different cultures, eg. Victoria Street in Richmond and Abbotsford.
»	Students with varying interests, skills and experiences can be catered for, as many activities can be explored in depth while other students will learn from the practical experiences.
»	Create and maintain a kitchen garden for Food Technology classes - grow herbs and specialist or unusual vegetables.
»	Explore the concepts and principles of garden design, propagation, plant functions and systems. Investigate the principles of permaculture.
»	Experiment with different growing conditions. Extend the research to look at how farmers manage such conditions.
»	Undertake classroom or lab experiments and then conduct similar experiments in the garden.
»	Investigate soils, make and use compost (introduce as part of waste management at the school), build worm farms. Simple activities can be linked to more complex, eg. a worm farm in a jar lets students investigate worms more closely than in a compost bin.
»	Use the activities in a cross-age or buddy program with a lower primary level grade.
»	Visit other gardens as part of the program, eg. the Children's and Kitchen Gardens at Royal Botanic Gardens, a local nursery, a market garden, a community garden site.
»	Make use of and support the local Agricultural Show. Encourage students to enter the cooking sections or their garden produce and to go and look at other entries.
»	Make it practical, fun and interactive …Take the students on a journey of exploration from their local vegie garden to Victoria's food and fibre production.

Similar suggestions apply to gardens focussed on other themes

» Indigenous species, Australian plants for bush foods, flowers, butterfly and bird gardens, mini crops, revegetation areas in the community all enhance the learning enhance the learning environments around the school.

Fieldwork

» Make it more than a day out! Build a topic around the fieldwork … investigate "beyond the farm gate".

» Visit local farms, Petty's Orchard, Gulf Station, Haining's Farm, landcare sites, - there are other options in different areas of the state. See http://www.landlearn.net.au > fieldwork for more suggestions and contact details.

» Ask LandLearn staff about the fieldwork available from LandLearn.

» Students can create "virtual fieldtrips" on PowerPoint or websites to share their learning with others.

» Include agriculture themes in at least some of the school's camps program. Visit farms, investigate the land use, food and fibre production, environmental management in the region around the camp. Consider "Rural Experience" as a camp theme. See the next page for more about Teaching Farms.

» Develop a partnership with a local landcare or "friends of" group to share community projects.

Resources - some suggestions

This list refers to a few of the many resources available. More detailed and topic specific lists are provided in LandLearn curriculum resources and in the resources available from other education programs. If teachers and students know of other excellent resources we can add to the lists, please pass the information on to LandLearn staff and share your good ideas with other teachers.

Gardens and Gardening

» Jackie French (1999) How to Guzzle your Garden. Angus & Robertson

» Alan Gilbert (2003) No Dig Gardening. ABC Books

» Peter Grant (2003) Habitat Garden. ABC Books

» Meredith Kirton (2003) Dig - Modern Australian Gardening. Murdoch Books

» Annette McFarlane (2002) Organic Vegetable Gardening. ABC Books

» Melissa McGroarty & Noelle Weatherley (1993) Growing into Gardening. Hyland House

» Wendy van Dok (2002) The Water-efficient Garden. A guide to sustainable landscaping in Australia. Water-efficient Gardenscapes

» (2002) Yates Garden Guide. Harper Collins

Web quest on Aboriginal use of plants http://science.uniserve.edu.au/school/quests/nativeplants.html

Agriculture - land management, systems and production of food and fibre

» Bob Brown et al. (2004) Dynamic Agriculture Years 7 - 10. McGraw-Hill

» John Butler & Ray Pask (2000) 'Using the land' in Heineman Geography Links 1, Chapter 5. Heineman

» Niranjan Casinader et al. (1998) 'Agriculture 2050: A Future Problem Solving Approach' in A Place for Geography Book 3, Chapter 5. Longman

» Anne Clark (2003) Senior Australian Agriculture 3rd Edition. Pascal Press

» Dianne Hanna & Ann Fagan (2001) Agriculture and Land Management Fieldwork Kit. Department of Natural Resources & Environment

» Susan Jackson (Various dates) Farm Books for Children. (12 in the series, eg. Farms, Dairy Cows, A Sheepdog, A Boom Sprayer, Wheat, Shearing Time.) Avalon Books

» S. Platt (2002) How to plan wildlife landscapes: a guide for community organisations. Department of Natural Resources & Environment

» Julianne Sharp (1997) Sustainable Agriculture - Protecting our Heartland. GTAV, DNRE, MDBC

» The Workboot Series (Various dates) Student books include Vegetables, Dairy, Honey, Rice, Timber, Wheat, Wool. Teacher Resource Kits include Dairy, Honey, Timber, Wheat, Wool. The Kondinin Group

» (2004) LandLearn Resource Booklets CD. Department of Primary Industries

» (1998) Catchment Education Resource Book. Department of Natural Resources & Environment

» Past editions of this Newsletter are available on the website: http://www.landlearn.net.au. They include useful activities and resources. Other LandLearn curriculum resources cover relevant themes such as - soil science, worms and composting, plant science, bush foods, and exploring biodiversity in different landscapes.