Educational gardens: the latest fashion or a really valid educational and training course? We lean towards the second ... But let's see better what it is before we reach a conclusion.
Not only books and notebooks, but also seeds, a hoe and a special apron. In the backpacks of children, new projects in schools called hands to planting.
Yes, because more and more educational institutions, including nurseries, have decided to introduce among their activities also that of the didactic garden, transforming a small piece of land into an open-air classroom.
What are the didactic gardens, exactly?
Here children can learn to grow real vegetables, plant seeds and see them gradually transformed into plants. The small students learn to observe nature, its slow and perfect rhythms, the cycle of the seasons and to reap the fruits of this work.
In this way, small gardeners can try their hand at a manual activity that encourages them to experiment and develop new skills and attitudes, discover the world of plants, make concrete experiences in the field, which are relaxing and instructive. And work in groups, also involving disabled children.
Children learn to recognize common species by observing their growth while outdoors and in contact with the earth. At the pedagogical level, we begin to assume a task and a responsibility within a work group.
[Part of our project in the school that I work]
The benefits of a didactic garden.
The school garden is also an opportunity to provide nutrition education so that children understand the importance of food quality to stay healthy.
The experience of the garden is, therefore, transversal and allows to study science, botany, history, but also geography and art. The school comes alive, becomes something new and exciting, and with it the relationship that unites students with the school environment.
In the wave of enthusiasm there are so many regions, schools, teachers and directors that are changing their programs around these activities and, even more, the associations, institutions and universities that have decided to support the school gardens with specific contributions.
[Part of our project in the school that I work]
The hope is that the new generations will learn to cultivate, in addition to zucchini and lettuce, also a sense of respect for nature and the strongest environment of their predecessors ...