Gardens as Innovative Learning Contexts

Dear Colleagues,

Educational gardens constitute versatile tools that are being used worldwide to accomplish a wide range of purposes, including food education and improvements in food security, promoting academic performance in scientific areas, providing students with outdoor learning experiences at educational centers, influencing environmental attitudes and behaviors, and enhancing social behaviors and skills, among others.

Thus, Garden-Based Learning (GBL) constitutes an emerging field of practice and research in the area of education, which requires the development of curricular products such as teaching–learning sequences to approach, in novel ways, a vast array of topics in the areas of science, food or environmental education. It is also necessary to work on specific assessment tools that allow the evaluation of certain learning aspects. Moreover, follow-up studies are required, which allow evidencing if learning and behavior changes remain, or what type of educational reinforcement would be necessary for their maintenance over time. Finally, the potential of gardens to approach relevant global environmental issues such as climatic change or biodiversity loss is still underused.

Authors are thus encouraged to submit manuscripts corresponding to educational research conducted at learning gardens (including Pre-School, Primary, Secondary, or Higher Education; and also community or urban gardens) regarding the following issues:

• Gardens as formal and informal educational settings;
• GBL programs and curricular products contextualized at gardens and related to science education, environmental education, and food education;
• Assessment and assessment tools for GBL;
• Promotion of pro-environmental attitudes, behaviors, and knowledge from gardens;
• Promotion of cooperative learning, participation and inclusion from gardens.

References:

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Barlett, P.F. (2011), “Campus sustainable food projects: Critique and engagement”, American Anthropologist, Vol. 113 No. 1, pp. 101–115. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2010.01309.x

Berezowitz C.K., Bontrager Yoder A.B., & Schoeller, D. A. (2015). School gardens enhance academic performance and dietary outcomes in children. Journal of School Health, 85, 508–518.

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Dyg, P.M. and Wistoft, K. (2018), “Wellbeing in school gardens – the case of the Gardens for Bellies food and environmental education program”, Environmental Education Research, Vol. 24 No. 8, pp.1177–1191. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2018.1434869

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Fisher-Maltese, C., & Zimmerman, T. D. (2015). A Garden-Based Approach to Teaching Life Science Produces Shifts in Students' Attitudes toward the Environment. International Journal of Environmental and Science Education, 10(1), 51–66. Retrieved from. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1061023.pdf

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Jagger, S., Sperling, E., and Inwood, H. (2016), “What’s growing on there? Garden-based pedagogy in a concrete jungle?”, Environmental Education Research, Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 271–287. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2014.997195

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Laurie, S.M., Faber, M. and Maduna, M.M. (2017), “Assessment of food gardens as nutrition tool in primary schools in South Africa”, South African Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 30 No. 4, pp. 80–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/16070658.2017.1271609

Ohly, H., Gentry, S., Wigglesworth, R., Bethel, A., Lovell, R. and Garside, R. (2016), “A systematic review of the health and well-being impacts of school gardening: Synthesis of quantitative and qualitative evidence”, BMC Public Health, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 286. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-2941-0

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Wells, N. M., Myers, B. M., Todd, L.E., Barale, K., Gaolach, B., Ferenz, G., Aitken, M., Henderson , C.H., Tse, C., Pattison, K.O., Taylor, C., Connerly, L., Carson, J.B., Gensemer, A.Z., Franz, N.K, & Falk, E.(2015). The Effects of School Gardens on Children's Science Knowledge: A randomized controlled trial of low-income elementary schools. International Journal of Science Education, 37(17), 2858–2878. doi:10.1080/09500693.2015.1112048

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Prof. Marcia Eugenio-Gozalbo
Guest Editor

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• learning gardens
• environmental education
• science education
• food education
• garden-based learning (GBL)