Description:
Abstract: This paper examines the position and role of 'place' in primary school curriculum. Drawing on the research literature and preliminary data the paper analyses a re-imagined environmental education program at a primary school. Innovative and collaborative processes that depict children as integral designers of a new garden place are discussed. Focus is given to the school ground as an important site for teaching and learning. The role of an ecological centre designed to teach children about sustainable building principles is discussed. Attention is drawn to the importance of children as place makers via endeavours that encourage and support children's fascination and affinity with outdoor places in the school ground. Tending a food garden is proposed as a significant pedagogical pathway for nurturing children's sense of wonder and enabling familiarity and a love of the natural world. Keywords: place, place makers, children, school ground, natural world, gardening
Description:
Abstract: This paper examines the position and role of 'place' in primary school curriculum. Drawing on the research literature and preliminary data the paper analyses a re-imagined environmental education program at a primary school. Innovative and collaborative processes that depict children as integral designers of a new garden place are discussed. Focus is given to the school ground as an important site for teaching and learning. The role of an ecological centre designed to teach children about sustainable building principles is discussed. Attention is drawn to the importance of children as place makers via endeavours that encourage and support children's fascination and affinity with outdoor places in the school ground. Tending a food garden is proposed as a significant pedagogical pathway for nurturing children's sense of wonder and enabling familiarity and a love of the natural world. Keywords: place, place makers, children, school ground, natural world, gardening
Description:
Place-based education attempts to position the individual in relationship with the human and non-human elements of the life-world, at a place that is welcoming of educational experience and a knowledge base from which to construct a more ecologically sustainable culture. Food gardens, along with ecological restoration projects within schools are experiencing a significant renaissance and are important sites for place-based education. Many of these places are located in and around the immediate environment of a school ground and become significant educational portals through which children explore their world. This paper reports on the literature reviewed for a study on how a pedagogy of place is cultivated within garden experiences. There is limited research about the use of school gardens as an educational tool and the specific pedagogies that support learning in this context. A number of themes emerge from various bodies of literature that provide a conceptual framework for the study of food garden pedagogies. These themes include placebased education, ecological literary, and nature as teacher. It is useful to think about primary school gardens in the light of this literature because it helps frame a research question for a study into how pedagogies of place can be cultivated within food gardens. [Author abstract, ed]
Description:
Place-based education attempts to position the individual in relationship with the human and non-human elements of the life-world, at a place that is welcoming of educational experience and a knowledge base from which to construct a more ecologically sustainable culture. Food gardens, along with ecological restoration projects within schools are experiencing a significant renaissance and are important sites for place-based education. Many of these places are located in and around the immediate environment of a school ground and become significant educational portals through which children explore their world. This paper reports on the literature reviewed for a study on how a pedagogy of place is cultivated within garden experiences. There is limited research about the use of school gardens as an educational tool and the specific pedagogies that support learning in this context. A number of themes emerge from various bodies of literature that provide a conceptual framework for the study of food garden pedagogies. These themes include placebased education, ecological literary, and nature as teacher. It is useful to think about primary school gardens in the light of this literature because it helps frame a research question for a study into how pedagogies of place can be cultivated within food gardens. [Author abstract, ed]