Perceptions and learnings in a school garden in Primary Education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12795/IE.2021.i103.05Keywords:
Educational garden, Food education, Environmental education, Sustainable citizenship, Primary education, SustainabilityAbstract
Educational gardens constitute a very versatile educational tool and context with great potential for different educational purposes, such as science teaching, improving eating habits, or the development of a sustainable citizenship, especially in its food and environmental dimensions. This work investigates the impact of an environmental education program carried out in educational gardens with students in the 5th year of Primary Education from three schools in Valladolid (Spain). With this purpose, focus groups of ten students per school were held, before and after the educational program. The recordings of these focus groups were transcribed and analysed using the MAXQDA software. A system of categories and subcategories was developed, with the objective of detecting changes in the discourse of the students. The students valued the work time in the garden positively as learning time, although some did not perceive it as class time. Although the students already had an elaborate discourse on the feeding relationship, they reinforced and expanded their previous knowledge. However, they did not develop awareness of the environmental impacts related to food production. The results show the importance of educational gardens for the development of a sustainable citizenship, but also the importance of the design of educational programs.Downloads
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Accepted 2021-04-22
Published 2021-04-28
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