The Garden Project: A Sustainable Framework for Learning

The

Garden Project A Sustainable Framework for Learning

A report about the role of The Garden Project in shaping a new paradigm for sustainable learning

Author © Angelica Manca Credits cover: © Ignazio Fulghesu

The author is responsible for the choice and the presentation of the facts contained in this work and for the opinions expressed therein. © Hoopla Education Pte. Ltd 2020 Printed in Italy

CONTENTS Introduction 1. Rebuilding Trust in Education through a sustainable framework of learning

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1.1 The Core Team

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1.2 Research & Development

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1.3 Pedagogy: The Garden Project’s A Sustainable Framework for Learning

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1.4 CLIL: Teaching English through Science

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1.5 Scaffolding Language with HOTs and LOTs

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1.6 CLIL: Lesson Planning for CLIL

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2. Promoting Teacher Excellence with Unique Teacher Resources

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2.1 Developing Affective Appreciation with The Garden Project

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2.2 The Teacher’s Manual: A Cognitive Roadmap to Demystify Gardening

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2.3 Garden in the Box: A Tool that Breaks Down External Barriers

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2.4 Interactive Professional Development & Implementation Strategies

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3. Advancing Sustainable Development through The Garden Project

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3.1 Sowing the Seeds: The Garden Project in Numbers

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3.2 Growing a Community of Adopters

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3.3 Case study of Global Collaborative Learning

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Concluding Remarks

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References

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Introduction “If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate Children.”

Chinese Proverb

200 years ago, there were less than one billion humans living on our planet. Today, according to UN calculations, there are over 7 billion of us, with 68% of the world population projected to live in urban areas by 2050 (United Nations, 2018). Children today spend 50% less time playing outside compared to their parents a generation ago*, with the risk of failing to develop positive, caring attitudes towards the environment. This, together with our excessive interference with the planet’s biospheric systems, is putting tremendous pressure on our natural resources and our need to act on Social, Economic and Education Reforms.

50%

Less time time spent by kids paying outside compared to their parents a generation ago* * National Trust, Natural Childhood Report 2012

Governments are starting to realize the pivotal role that education could play in the peaceful empowerment of its people and the survival of our species on the planet. For example, in November 2019 former Italian education minister Lorenzo Fioramonti** issued a statement declaring that all schools in Italy should incorporate at least one hour a week to study issues linked to climate change, with the intent of putting the environment and society at the core of learning in schools. Environmental education is being recognized as a key factor in creating awareness, concern, and recognition of the consequences of people’s actions on the environment.

*National Trust, National Childhood Report, 2012 ** Reuters, 5 November 2019

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These benefits however, may not be realized if such education is not introduced in the Early Years (Wilson, 1992), during a child’s most critical age of development. Moreover, resources and training materials have not kept up to pace, leaving elementary and preschool teachers particularly feeling inadequate in their presentation of environmental content to students, as these teachers generally don’t have a specialization in scientific subjects.

IN THE UNITED STATES, CHILDREN TODAY SPEND OVER

50 hours a week

ON SOME DEVISE

Generation M2: Media in the lives of 8- to 18-Year Olds - Kiaser Family Foundation

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The Garden Project was developed to positively transform children’s attitude towards their environment within a 21st century framework of learning. This transformation is made possible thanks to its unique and innovative pedagogy that empowers and engages children ages 3 to 8, in the first Project Based Learning curriculum in the Early Years, to use inquiry in real life situations.

Since its launch in 2015, The Garden Project has reached almost 10,000 students in 17 countries, on 5 continents, with numbers growing in double digits annually. Figures speak to the universality of its content. Its cost-efficient structure and rich student and teacher resources, bridge the lack of resources available for this age group, whilst also addressing the biggest external obstacles teachers face – space, time and budget – thanks to the Garden in the Box, the living lab in which children grow their vegetable seedlings in their classrooms. New knowledge and skills are acquired through hands-on activities that can easily be adapted for cultural and seasonal variations, in addition to establishing dialogues between schools across continents, seeding a new generation of citizenry.

“

Alam Atelier School has its roots set upon the nature-based approach to learning.

The Garden Project provided a systematic guide that inspired our teachers to plant the first crops with our students. From that initiative, we developed activities that allowed children to appreciate nature more. Using some of the techniques provided in The Garden Project manual, we learned to explore and work with Balinese crops, consider the local climate, and adopt traditional methods for planting and caring for our plants. Not long after, we were reaping a bountiful harvest.

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Lycel Arboleda, School Director, Ismile Alam Atelier School

1 Rebuilding trust in education through a sustainable framework of learning According to Wikipedia, sustainability is defined as “a process or state that can be maintained at a certain level for as long as is wanted.”* This concept was taken one step further by the Brundtland Commission, who defined sustainable development as development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”** Yet, today we know that our ability of future generations to meet their needs is severely compromised.

From the change in global temperatures to the emissions of greenhouse gases from industry and agriculture to the environment, to the depletion of fresh water supplies and the reduction of forest cover, Humanity’s excessive interference with the planet’s biospheric systems is violating our planet’s balance.

Our current systems, based on a linear socio-economic system, are founded on the fallacy that economic growth can continue forever on a finite planet, characterized by the depletion of our natural resources and destruction of the product at the end of its service life (Michelini et al.).

We’ve been aware of the limitations of our growth for quite some time. For instance, in 1972 Italian industrialist Aurelio Peccei together with research team headed by MIT professor Dennis Meadows, examined and simulated the effects of unlimited growth. The models showed that any system based on exponential economic and population growth eventually crashed.

They proposed an alternative theory of Limits, one in which a global society engaged in “a deliberate, controlled end to growth,” reducing industrial output and per-capita consumption, could achieve “a long-term equilibrium state” in which “the basic material needs of each person on Earth are satisfied and each person has an equal opportunity to realize his individual human potential.”*** Unfortunately, this theory has not been very popular, leading to further depletion of our resources.

The Educational system is also in urgent need of a reform. It mirrors the linear socioeconomic system where knowledge or data is the consumable good. Children are filled with information that educational frameworks randomly assign as ‘must have acquired’ by a certain age, irrespective of a child’s geography, natural inclinations, seasonality and/ or cultural traditions. This cookie-cutter, standardized education is plaguing schools everywhere and is jeopardizing children’s trust in the education system. * https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability **United Nations. 1987 Report of the World Commission on Environmental Development. ***The Limits to Growth

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Today, the climax of this distrust is manifested in children’s Youth Strike for Climate or Fridays for Future (FFF), an international movement of school students who are striking from school to participate in demonstrations that demand action to prevent harm to our planet. The leader, Greta Thunberg a 17-year-old Swedish schoolgirl, started this movement after staging a protest in August 2018 outside the Swedish Parliament, holding a sign that read “Skolstrejk för klimatet” (“School strike for the climate”). In fact, the 2019 Global Week for Future, between Friday 20 September and Friday 27 September 2019, saw the largest climate strikes in world history, gathering roughly 4 million protesters, many of them schoolchildren, clearly showing that children have lost faith in our systems.

Using nature as a resource for us to mimic the reformation of our faltering systems to, is key. In recent years a circular economic model (closed-loop systems) is being proposed as an alternative to linear socio-economic system. It bases its model on maximizing the value of all resources in use, considering a product at the end of its life cycle as a resource rather than debris to be disposed of. This type of model offers a beautiful parallel with nature, as everything in nature is understood within a circular model. Leaves in Autumn, for example, become a resource to the plant, rather than debris to be gotten rid of.

This circular mindset, at the basis of Humanity’s very existence, coupled with an inquirybased model to teaching was the groundwork of curriculum development for The Garden Project. It draws from the countless examples of nature’s paradigms and gives students the tools to drive their own learning, increasing their sense of self-efficacy, which according to psychologist Bandura (1997) is fundamental in creating a sense of empowerment on one’s environment.

Gan Wang, Ph.D. Yale, Founder of the Little Oak Children’s House in Bejing

“

When I travel and train rural preschool teachers in China, I am often amazed by the great length educators go to, find any kind of teacher resources. But they often ignore one precious resource: Mother Nature. This is because there are very few reference materials available for them. This is why I think The Garden Project will be very helpful, not only for urban schools, but for rural schools as well. With hands-on nature experiences and integrated activities, young children can appreciate nature more, and hopefully become adults with fuller lives in the future.

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1.1 The Core Team Curriculum development for The Garden Project started in 2014 and was completed in 2015, by a team of education professionals with decades of experience in early childhood development, environmental science, science and marine biology, contemporary art and music education located on or connected with different parts of the globe, from France to Cyprus, Greece, Australia, Hong Kong, Italy and the USA. They were driven by the desire to provide a truly global perspective to education, empowering the youngest members of our soceity with the appropriate skills to make better future decisions over the environment, for the long-term benefit of our planet. They focused on the Early Years as this is the critical age for developing long term, healthy life-changing habits.

early childhood development

cont

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The experience of being one of the first collaborators for The Garden Project was an amazingly creative journey. Working together with experts in their field from all parts of the world, brought a diversity to the project. Collaborations were made across areas of expertise, so as to weave the components for this wonderful project together, allowing each section of The Garden Project to unfold wonderful creative activities that children can enjoy. This experience was unique which I was grateful to be a part of and helped shape the research of my thesis of creativity in music education.

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Katherine Xenophontos, MA in Music Education and initial collaborator of Hoopla Education from Cypru

Angelica Manca Co-Founder Hoopla Education, BSc in Psychology Angelica holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Kent (U.K.). She has been working to promote creativity in the early years since 2002, in the realm of music, language development and sustainable education. Her work experience spans the Americas, Europe and Asia, where she has spoken extensively at multiple conferences: The Role of Play, Music and Movement in English Language Learning for Young Learners (Children’s Museum Rome, 2009); The Impact of Play in Social-Emotional Development (Beijing International Early Childhood Conference, 2010); The Impact of Music on Foreign Language Acquisition (International Conference on Bilingualism, Hong Kong, 2012), to name a few. In 2014, she co-founded Hoopla Education and developed The Garden Project, a curriculum that promotes sustainability and healthy eating in the Early Years using nature as its instructional medium. The Garden Project has been licensed by Macmillan Iberia and Macmillan Brazil in addition to being implemented in 17 countries. Born American and Italian, she was raised in Europe – France, Switzerland, Italy and Spain – and believes in the value of communication and combining skills to bring the highest learning experience. A mother of 2, she has seen first-hand the power creative teaching has on her own children.

Paul Wagner Co-founder Hoopla Education, Contemporary Artist Paul Frank Wagner is a New York raised, world-renowned conceptual artist. His art is strongly influenced by the 1960’s Minimalism movement and the use of rope as his main material aims to promote a revolutionary art. Texture, accessibility, recycling propensity, and the ability to both connect and free, are the reasons Paul has chosen “rope” in his artwork. In 2005, Paul was 1 of the 30 Artists featured in “30 Ways to make a Painting” - together with high profile artists such as Christo, Keith Sonnier, Allan McCollum and Nam June Paik to name a few, at the Carl Solway Gallery, Cincinatti, OH. USA. In 2009 his solo show was featured at Scope Miami for Grey Gallery/LHP Productions and in 2014 his “Exhale” Installation for the animals in the Forest won 1st prize on Artslant Magazine. Today, Paul is the author of the first contemporary art curriculum for children inspired by the land art movement, and teaches children through his creative art workshops. Paul firmly believes that everyone is an artist and as Picasso once said “all children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once one grows up”.

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Katherine Xenophontos MA Music and Creative Teaching, Music Teacher Professional Katherine Xenophontos is a Canadian born Cypriot and graduate of Music Education at York University in Toronto, Canada. She also holds a Master’s Degree in Music Education from the European University of Cyprus. She has been teaching music education in preschools, primary and secondary schools to children in Cyprus since 2002, focusing on music and creativity teaching techniques. Actively involved in the music education scene in Cyprus, Katherine continues to advocate the need for quality music education in the early years, especially the exploration of sound within the classroom setting, as a means to inspire creative music making using the body, the voice and day to day materials.

Stefania Sarasiti Bachelor in Preschool Education University of Athens, Horticulturist Stefanìa Sarasiti holds a degree in pre-school education, with extensive experience working both as a kindergarten teacher as well as in environmental studies with children. Her passion for environmental awareness started in 1996 when she worked for the Sea-turtle protection society in Gytheio and Athens (Greece).

Stefanìa is a certified Horticultural Therapist from the Agrarian School of Monza (Italy) adding gardening and horticulture to her proficiency in environmental studies. In 2014, she specialized in Environmental Education from the Environmental Education Centre in Northern Italy and has over a decade experience working with schools on environmental projects ranging from kindergarten up to age 12.

A mother of two, Stefanìa a Greek-German heritage, living in Italy with her family. Her multicultural background and extensive travel gives her a unique perspective on education.

Her passion lies in Bringing all people close to Nature and Nature close to people.

Lloyd Godson Co-Founder The Nature School, Ocean Scientist Lloyd Godson was born and raised in Albury, Australia, and has lived, worked and studied in Antarctica, Australia, Bahamas, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, New Zealand, Panama and the United States. His bold endeavors have brought him to become a marine edu-tainer and aquanaut (Lloyd has lived a total of 624 hours underwater), bubbling over with a sense of adventure and exciting ideas. Creative, passionate and enthusiastic, he loves to live his wild ideas and put them to the test in the real world. He is the co-founder of one of the most successful nature schools in Eastern Australia in Port Macguarie. When Lloyd was a boy, his dad told him one thing every night, “If you dream it, you can do it”. Lloyd wants to pass this important message onto as many children as he can and contribute to making the next generation the most active, curious, compassionate and creative one so far.

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1.2 Research & Development In 2014, independent research was conducted by co-founders Angelica Manca and Paul Wagner, on a sample of early childhood teachers from Europe and Asia with diverse training backgrounds, but whom all spoke English fluently. A total of 69 teachers responded, providing insightful information on curricular needs. The highlights from the survey allowed curriculum development to focus on prioritizing lesson plans for children ages 3-4, 4-5 and 5-6 years old, the preferred age groups from newborn to age 7 (Figure 1), and creating a curriculum that combined Arts, Movement, and Nature & Environmental Awareness, the top three curricula teachers were interested in (Figure 2).

Interested Age Groups Newborn1 year old

Figure 1 Educators’ preferred age group for Curriculum Development in the Early Years (0-7yrs)

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1 to 2 years old

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2 to 3 years old

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3 to 4 years old

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4 to 5 years old

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5 to 6 years old

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6 to 7 years old

34 0

10

20

30

40

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Interested Curricula to be Implemented in the Classroom 100 80 60

48 40

40

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51 38

39

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Angelica Manca and Paul Wagner, Educator Curricular Needs, Independent Research Hoopla Education, 2014

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Other

Yoga

9 Virtues/ Etiquette

Soccer/ Football

Science

Nature & Environmental Studies

Movement

Gym

ESL English

Drama

Dance

Cooking & Baking

Baby Massage

0

13

13

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Karate

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Art

Figure 2 Educators’ preferred disciplines for Curriculum Development in the Early Years (0-7yrs)

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“At the World Expo I learned that wasting food is sacrilegious” Milano (2015)

Inspiration for came from Milan’s 2015 World Expo subject theme “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”, which encompassed technology, innovation, culture, traditions and creativity relating to food and sustainability, irrespective of geography, cultural background and/or social status. Following this ethos, The Garden Project made use of the same mediums – technology, innovation, culture and tradition – to promote a more creative and innovative curriculum for the Early Years.

The Garden Project was also influenced by the growing trend of Forest Schools in Europe, introduced as an alternative to the teacher/outcome-centered approach. This bases itself on the idea that confidence and self-esteem are developed through hands-on learning experiences that occur in a woodland or natural environment. Recognizing the logistical difficulties and impracticality of transferring all of children’s learning experiences to the woodlands or the outdoors, the pedagogy developed within The Garden Project brings nature into the classrooms by applying a Project Based Learning** approach to Spiral Learning, adopting nature as an authentic medium for learning.

**The Buck Institute defines Project Based Learning as a dynamic classroom approach in which children gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to a complex, question, problem or challenge.

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1.3 Pedagogy: A Sustainable Framework for Learning “Be inquisitive. Open your eyes, open your minds to things you don’t necessarily know even exist. I think that’s an important part of learning and growing. The more [you]’re willing to ask, the more [your]’re going to get out of it.”

Jay Rinaldi

The Garden Project’s pedagogy is predicated on the cognitive theory advanced by Jerome Bruner “that any subject can be taught in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development”.This breaks away from the traditionally linear models of education to apply a dynamic Spiral Learning approach. Students’ intuition is placed at the center of the learning experience by acquiring knowledge through Project Based Learning (PBL), driven by age-appropriate inquiries of the natural world, and the Garden in the Box, a portable science lab of seasonal, edible plants grown and nurtured by students.

UNIT 1

Preparing

UNIT 2

Planting

Dec Nov

Feb

UNIT 5

Decomposing & Regenerating

Jan e

p Nam

Cro

Beets ts Carro ce

Lettu

Okra s

Onion

ers

Pepp

oes

Potat

UNIT 3

hes

Radis

ch

Growing

Spina

s

berrie

Straw

es

ato

Tom

UNIT 4

Harvesting Following the principles of sustainability, the curriculum is made up of five cyclical units: Preparing (Unit 1), Planting (Unit 2), Growing (Unit 3), Harvesting (Unit 4) and Decomposing and Regenerating (Unit 5), in accordance with the plants’ lifecycle, from seed to harvest to re-seeding. Each unit is made up of four lessons that focus on the process of how knowledge is acquired by driving the lesson’s inquiry through Our Green Question, the thread of the lesson. Every lesson is broken down further to scaffold learning into one or more activities interpreting a STEAM - Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts or Math - discipline that cumulatively contribute to a deeper understanding of the scientific concept at hand. These activities are advanced by a series of guiding questions that link to Our Green Question.

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The Garden Project follows three key developmental stages, in accordance with the constructivist theory, giving children ages 3 to 8 the same learning material, varying the instruction in accordance with a child’s developmental age and/or skillset:

Stage 1 – Wonder, focuses on the discovery of nature’s elements and children’s appreciation for the natural world;

Stage 2 – Observation, is centered around children becoming knowledgeable about their environment through the careful observation of plants and natural surroundings;

Stage 3 – Investigation, leads children to apply scientific concepts through the investigation and inquiry of the natural world.

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The Garden Project recipe exchange activity, at the Centro Hoopla in Cagliari, Italy

Key scientific concepts are linked to the natural world and increase in complexity with each revisit, from simple to more complex ideas. Students build on prior experiences by collecting, recording and sharing their observations on their Student Journals, an integral part of the project, are encouraged to develop their own investigations as they familiarize themselves with the content.

Teachers share in the enthusiasm, curiosity and wonder offered by nature, giving students ample time to share and discuss their learnings with peers. Through this journey of discovery, teachers build empathy between child and the natural world, facilitating a loving relationship with nature and our environment. It’s important to do this before invoking knowledge and responsibility towards it (Sobel, 1996). Moreover, this framework is adaptable to students’ interests and cultures. The very product of their learning, seeds, become the foundation for subsequent academic years, drawing a natural link from year to year and making learning tangible on multiple levels making this a truly sustainable framework for learning.

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The Garden Project at Veritas Learning Circle in Karachi, Pakistan

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1.4 CLIL: Teaching English through Science The Garden Project has been used extensively to teach science through English in countries where English is not used as the native language. It is defined as a Science CLIL program.

CLIL stands for Content and Language Integrated Learning and is used especially in Europe to encourage bilingual education where an additional language, in most cases English, is used as the language of instruction in non-language school subjects.

The Garden Project contributes to a meaningful context for language learning by facilitating the acquisition of knowledge and understanding of the natural world through hands-on activities, whilst simultaneously learning how to use target language in English. It is an important tool in developing European citizens’ bi- and multilinguism, in addition to complimenting regular foreign language teaching beautifully. The Garden Project vocabulary covers both content-obligatory language, associated with plants and lifecycles, and contentcompatible language, non-subject specific language such as shapes, colors and size.

The Teacher’s Manual provides teacher support by delivering scientific, content-obligatory, language, with lists of target vocabulary. These are the content and language support strategies needed to enhance students’ knowledge of scientific concepts, processes and functions within any given unit. Moreover, content obligatory language includes cultural nuances by referencing to plants, fruits and vegetables that are indigenous to their home countries.

Examples of Content-Obligatory Language and Content Compatible Language within The Garden Project

CONTENT-OBLIGATORY LANGUAGE

CONTENT-COMPATIBLE LANGUAGE

Bulb Stem Seedlings, sprout Cauliflower Overcast Aphids Bees Companion planting

Round-smooth Long-short Small/Big plants Vegetables Cloudy Pests Friends Friendship

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1.5 Scaffolding Language with HOTs and LOTs As budding scientists, students are encouraged to look for patterns and order when making observations about the world and their natural environment. Inquiry is driven by the driving question – why the lesson is being run – which is key to a successful PBL. For this reason, each lesson starts with Our Green Question – the thread of the lesson to drive children’s curiosity to understand their natural environment. These involve higher order thinking skills (HOTs), i.e. the why and how questions which require the use of more complex language.

At the start of every lesson, teachers are given the language frames needed to talk about the subject area to guide them through the program linguistically. In addition, every lesson has one or more PBL Guiding Questions that prelude every activity, giving children clues to answer Our Green Question at the end of the lesson. These questions were elaborated to support children’s understanding of Our Green Question and scaffold learning. These tend to encourage lower order thinking skills (LOTs), such as the what, when, where and which questions.

Non-native English students are given ample time to repeat and remember Our Green Question throughout the lesson. Its elaboration is only done at the end of the lesson, once they’ve performed the activities to answer the PBL Guiding Questions and are ready to share their ideas and understanding of the scientific concept at hand.

Language Support: An example of the way PBL Guiding Questions (LOTs) contribute to the understanding of the Our Green Question (HOT) in Lesson 1, Unit 1 Our Green Question: Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTs)

Why is it important to know what season we’re in?

PBL Guiding Questions: Lower Order Thinking Skills (LOTs)

Cross-curricular Reference

What are the colors from the season we’re in?

Art

What colors can you see in the photos you’ve taken?

What is the weather like?

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Technology

Science

1.6 CLIL: Lesson Planning for CLIL Lesson planning for CLIL can be rather complex as it has to take many factors into consideration: the complexity of content-obligatory language, the time needed for students to repeat non-subject content language, the ability to outline student outcomes, the use of cross-curricular references and the use of hands-on activities. In a study conducted by Bentley and Philips in 2007, with secondary CLIL learners in Spain, researchers found that teachers need to know how to deliver subject content effectively and collaborative learning was most effective when linked to experiential learning of science subjects.

The Garden Project lends itself perfectly as a CLIL program as, in addition to supporting language learning, it also guides teachers with the learning outcomes and student objectives for each lesson combined with collaborative and practical hands-on activities linked to growing edible plants.

Each lesson highlights learner-centered skills that are being developed within each activity.

The Garden Project Journals, an integral part of the project, encourage the documentation of the world around the students, building on prior experiences by collecting and recording data.

These are essential elements needed to support learners in developing science learning skills (Hayward, 2003).

The Garden Project adopts a multi-disciplinary STEAM framework, emphasizing Science based on empirical evidence and inquiry of the natural world in the non-native language, English. The multi-disciplinary framework provides cross-curricular reference between Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math.

The application of a dynamic Spiral Learning approach gives students the space and time to discover nature’s lifecycles several times throughout their school career, increasing in complexity with each revisit, and giving learners the opportunity to repeatedly hear subjectspecific language. At the end of each level, teachers are provided with Scientific skill-based assessments to evaluate student outcomes.

Patricia Souza, Director of Languages, Macmillan do Brasil

“

I truly believe The Garden Project offers a very special framework that fosters creativity through a one-of-a-kind approach. Learners have the opportunity to nurture a love of nature while exploring the environment, using it as a third educator in the process. The STEAM framework provides the perfect setting for the big questions to be investigated and this allows their curiosity to shine through. They share opportunities for learning and develop not only language skills but also their knowledge of the world. This is the true foundation for future citizens to better care for our planet.

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This little girl is learning about the importance of conserving water as part of The Garden Project at Little Academy Nursery in Doha, Qatar

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2 Promoting Teacher Excellence with Unique Teacher Resources A good curriculum is only as good as its teacher. Research on preschool quality shows a correlation between teacher competence and preschool quality, being the main contributing factor to its quality (NAEYC, 2006). This growing awareness has led to an increased need for professionalism of early childhood educators.

The range of competencies required, particularly in the arts, in teachers who work with young children, is inherently high. According to the UNESCO’s Road Map for Arts Education (2006), arts should be at the forefront for skill development in the 21st century, as it allows nations to develop the human resources necessary to tap into their cultural capital. Arts education is an essential component of a comprehensive education, requiring highly skilled teachers to achieve quality arts integration (Andrews, 2004).

Unfortunately, teachers’ sense of empowerment, can be affected by their self-efficacy levels (Bandura, 1997). This means that self-efficacy beliefs teachers hold about their ability to teach subjects will shape their ability in teaching it. If teachers have strong teacher selfefficacy in teaching arts education, they are more likely to incorporate arts in the classroom.

Alternatively, if teachers have weak teacher self-efficacy in teaching arts they are less likely to include aspects of it in their curriculum (Ramey-Gassert, Shroyer, & Staver, 1996).

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In 2014, I attended The Garden Project teacher training.

The Garden Project taught us to value the simple gifts nature had to offer. With it we created beautiful installations, an onion harvested from the garden could be cut and used as a stamp, even lying down in the meadow with your eyes closed listening to the sounds of nature, provided endless resources for us to use with children.

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Laura Masini, Primary Teacher, Little England School, Brescia, Italy

This is even more true of using gardening programs to teach for science at the Early Childhood Education level. Teachers believe that their knowledge of gardening concepts is more important than their knowledge of science concepts despite research showing that using a garden as a teaching medium doesn’t require a masterful ability to grow plants, but rather, the skill to expose students to knowledge within an interactive environment.

The Garden Project boosts high teacher efficacy in the arts and in environmental education with: (i) Highly aesthetic, age-appropriate Student Journals that were developed with the skill and expertise of specialists in the arts and multiple musical genres thanks to The Vegetable Plot; (ii) Detailed Teachers Manual with the instructional guidance and support in STEAM activities needed to provide an effective nature-based, inquiry program at the Early Childhood level; (iii) The overcoming of external barriers involved in environmental and garden-based education with the Garden in the Box; and (iv) Adequate Professional Development.

The Garden Project Teacher’s Training, Perth, Australia

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2.1 Developing Affective Appreciation with The Garden Project The Garden Project places its primary emphasis on the Affective Appreciation of nature through hands-on activities, rather than its Cognitive Understanding, as is developmentally appropriate for children in the Early Years (birth through Age 8), in accordance with Ruth Wilson’s chart (Figure 1) of how Environmental Education should be taught in Early Childhood Education and how it evolves through time.

Figure 1. Suggested ratio of affective appreciation and cognitive understanding

cognitive understanding

Adulthood affective appreciation

affective appreciation

cognitive understanding

Middle Childhood

cognitive understanding

affective appreciation

Early Childhood

Focus of Environmental Education at the Early Childhood Level, Ruth Wilson (1997)

The Garden Project provides teacher support in developing Affective Appreciation for nature through its rich arts-based activities, both visually and musically. All visual art activities were curated by contemporary artist Paul Frank Wagner, with beautiful process-driven content.

The beautifully designed journals also facilitate the child’s natural creativity and aesthetic perception.

“

With a population of 7 million people densely packed into a city of skyscrapers and towers, it is often too easy to get lost in the concrete jungle of Hong Kong. We saw a need in our learners to touch, smell and feel natural materials, to slow down and enjoy the sights around them, experiencing these materials first-hand for themselves. Therefore, when we were introduced to The Garden Project, we loved the way the activities encouraged learners to investigate, explore and manipulate natural materials through their own senses. The activities were engaging and aesthetically presented so that fun, messy processes morphed into beautiful, expressive art.

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Gloria Ho, Program Coordinator, Tivoli Preschool, Hong Kong

The Garden Project also catchy tunes and from The Vegetable Plot CD, with groovy music about healthy eating. Gus, an animated asparagus, the lead character of The Vegetable Plot, is a fearless leader whose goal is to convey the message to children and their families that vegetables love to be eaten so they can nourish our bodies. The use of a vegetable character, has also strengthened that emotional bond with the program, and consequently the development of children’s affective appreciation.

Luke Escombe creator of The Vegetable Plot, with his wife Kamilla and son Harry, together with Co-Founders Angelica Manca and Paul Wagner and their son Kai meeting for the first time in Sydney, 2015

Luke Escombe, singer, song writer and creator of The Vegetable Plot

“

I met co-founders of Hoopla Education, Angelica Manca and Paul Wagner in Sydney, 2015. We immediately clicked over our shared passion for educating children about healthy food, and a desire to create joyful educational experiences for them that were built around planting, growing and eating vegetables. It didn’t take long for us to realize that The Vegetable Plot and The Garden Project were a perfect fit. The Vegetable Plot’s songs and characters, particularly my character Aspara Gus or “Gus”, added a wonderful dimension of storytelling, fun and music to The Garden Project’s beautifully conceived teacher and learner resources.

What I particularly love about The Garden Project, and why I think it is so important, is that it fosters a connection between children and the food they eat. For thousands of years this connection to our food, and to the soil, was at the heart of every culture, but in recent times this connection has been lost, and our connection with the natural world has been severed. For the health of our children, and the future of our planet, we need to rebuild this relationship and this understanding. We need to become planters and nurturers again, not just consumers.

”

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2.2 The Teacher’s Manual: A Cognitive Roadmap to Demystify Gardening Studies have shown that what differentiates an expert teacher from a less confident one, is their knowledge in the structure of their disciplines, providing a roadmap that guide the activities for their students, the judgement to gauge students’ progress, as well as the quality of questions asked to bring the learning to life (McDonald and Naso, 1986). The Garden Project Teacher’s Manual provides teachers with extensive instructional guidance, acting as a Cognitive Roadmap to apply inquiry-based, early years environmental education, in addition to supporting the rediscovery of the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in which, according to Carson (1965), is the most important aspect in environmental education.

The Garden Project Teacher’s Manual

Each of the five units – Preparing, Planting, Growing, Harvesting and Decomposing and Regenerating – is made up for four educational lessons, introducing a science concept that is broken down into smaller interdisciplinary activities, each one introduced by a compelling driving question, or guiding question, and identified by one of the five STEAM logos. These activities cumulatively contribute to a deeper understanding of the concept in each given unit. Preschool and kindergarten teachers are supported in their STEAM topic knowledge, as they generally tend to be less confident than secondary school teachers, who are usually specialized in a particular subject (Nadelson et al., 2013).

The Garden Project can also be easily implemented in schools that follow child-led approaches, thanks to the STEAM Learning Centre activities, which are designed to encourage further exploration of a concept. These child-led activities, run in autonomy with 1 to 4 children, and are marked with a magnifying icon, varying in color depending on the STEAM discipline they are under.

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2.3 Garden in the Box: A Tool that Breaks Down External Barriers We know that gardening and environmental education provide authentic experiences that contribute to student understanding of a range of topics, however, its implementation at school can be hindered by a teacher’s inability to adapt his or her knowledge in a different setting, i.e. from the traditional classroom to an outdoor setting (Dyment, 2005).

Teacher competency aside, teachers are often faced with the lack of availability of physical resources (a site for the garden) and funding for the space (DeMarco et al., 1999), often aggravated by the time constraint caused by a loss of focus and purpose of students shifting from a classroom to a garden setting.

School Garden in Michaelchurch Escley Primary School, UK

To overcome these constraints, The Garden Project makes use of the Garden in the Box as its primary instructional medium. Students create a small edible garden by transforming a small box (30cm x 20cm x 20cm) into a vegetable garden box, made up of vegetables and herb seedlings. By bringing the garden into the classroom, teachers are able to better manage their time, reduce their costs and take full responsibility of the garden, which we know from DeMarco’s study are the contributing factors to a successful integration of gardening in the curriculum.

The Garden Project at Il Sorriso Preschool in Milan, Italy

The Garden in the Box also addresses the growing urbanization of schools and the lack of space for a school garden. By having multiple Garden in the Boxes within the classroom, children are able to observe their plants from close, transforming this instructional medium into a living science lab.

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2.4 Interactive Professional Development & Implementation Strategies One of the most powerful and transformative tools in teachers’ professional development, is the opportunity for teachers to learn alongside their peers. Participating in professional development workshops allows teachers to share the energy and provides the opportunity to gain ideas and insights from each other (Kelley & Williams 2004).

Teachers adopting The Garden Project are given two professional development options: the online training, a self-paced training with video tutorials that give the step-by-step processes, and/or the Face-to-Face Workshop, with strategies on how to adopt nature-design elements in the classroom, taught in a highly interactive environment.

The well-planned and intentional implementation strategies provided in The Garden Project’s professional development modules, are the fruit of best practices shared by the core team of Hoopla Education Specialists with 10 or more years technical experience within a unique area of expertise - ranging from conceptual art to underwater-science - so that teachers can feel knowledgeable and comfortable in conveying the acquired knowledge to students.

The Garden Project Teacher’s Training at The Greensboro Children’s Museum, USA

“

We had a great experience with Hoopla Education! Angelica and Paul led a gardenbased education workshop for teachers at our facility and did an amazing job. The participants were engaged, inspired, and excited to implement The Garden Project curriculum following the training. We highly recommend Hoopla Education!

”

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Hailey Moses Streibich, Garden Coordinator, The Edible Schoolyard, The Greensboro Children’s Museum (USA)

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3 Advancing Sustainable Development through The Garden Project “The more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think the same is true of human beings” Thoreau

In 2015, 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were put forward by the United Nations and received full adoption by all Member States, as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030. These interconnected goals, address the global challenges we face today, giving us the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

The Garden Project, through its innovative approach to education, addresses the UN’s three dimensions of Society, Economy and Environment Sustainable Development, through the interplay of empathy, exploration and social action within an educational framework that is transferable to the entire community.

In this section, we will review the way The Garden Project actively addresses 6 of the SDGs key goals through its innovative framework for Sustainable Education.

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Eradicating Poverty through Quality Education and Creating the Values an Attitudes to Positively impact Responsible Consumption and Production The increase in human population followed by the rapid industrialization and urbanization is expanding extreme poverty around the world. It is widely accepted that education can be considered the great equalizer, creating new opportunities for jobs, resources, and skills for families. Yet, among the many causes of global poverty, is the very lack of education.

This crisis is aggravated by the depletion of the natural environment in developing countries, arising from the condition of poverty or negative effects of the very process of development (Sahu & Ghildayal, 2007). Breaking the negative spiral by enabling learners to bring about changes for a more just, peaceful and sustainable world, is key.

The Garden Project does this by providing quality education, starting in the early years, to support a child’s development of social, emotional, cognitive and communication skills, in addition to knowledge and abilities (i.e., human assets) to change their consumption patterns and connect them to their communities. The use of low-cost, organic and perishable materials, such as seeds, soil, fruit or vegetables, or re-purposed items from the recycled bin, reorients education so that everyone, regardless of geography or economic conditions, has the opportunity to acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that contribute to a sustainable future.

The Garden Project also addresses the problem of paper consumption in schools. For example, currently in the United States more than 34 billion sheets of paper are consumed in schools every single year. Going completely paperless isn’t a viable solution as there is an inherent value for children to use paper to develop fine motor skills. However, drastically reducing paper usage is. This is done by making the use of paper and documentation process more meaningful with the student journals. These journals are printed on 100% recycled thick paper, so children can use them in their explorations of natural materials like leaves, mud and seeds. The spiral bind makes it especially easy for the younger group to use.

Gloria Ho, Program Coordinator, Tivoli Preschool, Hong Kong

“

With its hands-on activities and focus on exploring local, natural materials, we saw our learners gradually become more explorative and curious about their own surroundings.

They became more confident in engaging with different materials and were more attentive to changes in their environment. There was also a sense of fascination with the wonder of nature and a sense of pride in their own abilities to contribute and change the landscape around them.

”

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It is this quality primary education that will contribute to eradicate poverty and support more responsible consumption and production, as children are more likely to develop these assets as they get older, and use these abilities and skills to earn higher incomes or further develop other basic assets. This will prompt the current school paradigm to shift from an extractive economy determined to dominate nature, to that of learning how to live within our means at both a local and global level, based on the principles of sustainability.

Good Health through Healthy Eating Choices

Keeping in good health today has never been more difficult. People in industrialized countries are presented with an endless array of processed, packaged and scentless products, forcing us to rely on the expert knowledge of food manufacturers, labellers and processors in our dietary choices.

The Garden Project guides children into making healthy food choices through the growth of plants as a central design element of the project. It is widely known, that children are more likely to eat more fruits and vegetables if they grow it themselves. In a study run by Debra Haire-Joshu in 2007, findings were simple and clear: preschool children in rural areas eat more fruits and vegetables when the produce is homegrown as it creates “a ‘positive food environment.’”

The Garden Project draws a parallel between brightly colored fruit and vegetables with their highly nutritional values. Unit 4 teaches students that all fruit and vegetables can be categorized into 5 color groups: red, orange/yellow, green, white/brown and purple/ blue, exploring some of the nutritional substances that give these colors to our fruit and vegetables. Children are given cues on how to eat a combination of these colors on a daily basis, which is fundamental for keeping a balanced diet and making healthy eating choices.

“

The Garden Project became our inspiration for our Earth Day Family Planting. On this day, we gather the school community and have parents work with the children to explore, create, and grow. The program targets various developmental domains and provides us with well-rounded activities that encouraged community building. We examine the elements that allow plants to grow, decorate our planters and pots, work with our hands, investigate seedlings and plant parts, and delight in each other’s company.

”

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Lycel Arboleda, School Director, Ismile Alam Atelier School

No Hunger and More Sustainable Cities and Communities

As our population continues to grow and become more urbanized, the democratization of our food source is key to ensuring that we eradicate hunger and facilitates the awareness that we can all be responsible for growing our own food, even within the smallest space. The Garden Project provides children with the necessary skills to grow their own food, cultivate lifelong healthful eating habits and provide growing options in urban environments. This is done through innovative and functional learner and teacher resources that follow the lifecycle of local, seasonal and edible plants. Moreover, the use of Garden in the Box, a portable teaching lab, provides a growing option at a very low cost whenever an outdoor garden is not available.

Shifting the responsibility of our own food source to the individual, could lead to new conceptions of citizenship that, according to farmer activist Wendell Berry, are needed to develop a more sustainable agriculture to revitalize local food economies, develop shared experiences and shorten the food supply chains. From Larzac in France to Greening of Detroit, we are provided with countless models of how community control of resources and participatory democracy works.

The Garden Project encourages schools to connect with the community through planting and growing activities, embracing sustainability as an organizing principle to seek ways to protect local lifestyles and livelihoods, and improving the quality of our cities. “Emphasizing hands-on, real world learning experiences” says David Sobel, not only increases academic achievement but also “helps students develop stronger ties to their community, enhances students’ appreciation for the natural world, and creates a heightened commitment to serving as active, contributing citizens. Community vitality and environmental quality are improved through the active engagement of local citizens, community organizations, and environmental resources in the life of the school” (David Sobel, Place-Based Education).

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Earth Day activities inspired by The Garden Project framework at Ismile Alam Atelier School in Bali, Indonesia

Children learning about biodiversity through locally sourced materials with The Garden Project, at Jack & Jill Center in Beijing, China.

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3.1 Sowing the Seeds: The Garden Project in Numbers The Garden Project curriculum was completed and launched in 2015 in English from Singapore. Since its inception, The Garden Project has been implemented in 17 countries worldwide to almost 9,000 children, and numbers are growing twofold with every year of its implementation. The curriculum has proven to be culturally relevant and replicable in every corner of the Earth.

The Garden Project in Numbers Year

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

No. of Students

159

552

846

2,556

4,853

247%

53%

202%

90%

Growth

up to - 250: Armenia, Australia, Germany, Indonesia, Pakistan, Singapore, Thailand, UAE and Vietnam

251 - 1000: Italy, Qatar, Turkey, USA, Hong Kong and China

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1001 - 5000: Brazil and Spain

The experienced growth proves there is a high demand for this type of program. Interestingly, the English Language Learning (ELL) market has been the most successful adoption model.

In fact, the two largest adopters, Macmillan Spain and Macmillan Brazil, have licensed the curriculum to implement it as an alternative and hands-on ELL curriculum or Science CLIL program which, in addition to delivering scientific concepts through sustainability and healthy eating, also grows English language learning skills.

In Figures

8,966

the number of children who have been connected with nature through The Garden Project

17

85%

countries

are using The Garden Project as a Science

CLIL - English Language Learning - Program

“

We are proud to have collaborated with Hoopla Education on a special edition of The Garden Project for Spain, not only offering a memorable way to learn English, but also developing life skills and healthy habits that children can use beyond the classroom.

We are especially pleased to see The Garden Project has appealed to all types of learning contexts. From both state and private schools, in rural areas and large cities, to International Curriculum schools, we are delighted to see The Garden Project is currently being enjoyed in so many diverse settings.

�

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Sheena Mitchell, Product Development Manager, Macmillan Spain

3.2 Growing a Community of Adopters As the concept of “living green” gains increased currency and the community of The Garden Project adopters grows, the goal is to establish a dialogue between adopters and stakeholders. Through this dialogue, schools are able to foster integrative thinking needed to respond to the challenges of sustainable development both on a local and global level.

Children develop an understanding in the way communities are similar or different from one another by accessing multiple perspectives and thus attaining a more global vision. This builds an awareness of how change in one part of the planet can impact people in other parts. As educators, it’s our responsibility to provide our students with the tools to become more active citizens and culture creators rather than consuming subjects forced to rely on the expert knowledge of food manufacturers in our dietary choices.

A student exploring the root system, unit 1 of The Garden Project, Turkey

The Garden Project references cultural traditions and links planting food (vegetables) and culture together by proposing local recipes used with the vegetables grown in the Garden in the Box. Children are given cues that can easily be remembered and used to make healthy eating choices. This adds a cultural element to the learning, which in turns starts a dialogue between schools in different countries to use a common language – nature – within common framework for learning – The Garden Project. This type of integrative thinking requires attention in our interconnectedness and the creative possibilities that they engender.

Pınar Besikçi founder of Atölye5 and Nork preschool, Istanbul Turkey

“

In 2016 when I founded Nork Preschool in Istanbul, I incorporated The Garden Project as our core curriculum, as it complements our school vision and philosophy perfectly. The nature-inspired and project based component, provides children with a concrete way to gain knowledge. I believe that today, children’s most valuable asset, Nature, has been stolen from them, and The Garden Project gives it back to them through unlimited circumstances, be it a pot, a garden or a field. That is the brilliance of it!

”

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3.3 Case Study of Global Collaborative Learning In September of 2018, a three-way collaboration of classrooms was started between The Berkeley School, an Ashoka change-maker school in Berkeley, California USA, Veritas Learning Circle from Koshi Pakistan and Jack & Jill Early Learning Centre in Beijing, China.

These schools shared an alignment in their philosophy by using nature in the classroom and adopting a multidisciplinary approach to learning. All three schools chose 4-5-year-old classrooms to concurrently run The Garden Project, so that children gained skills from the lesson plans but also from each other by comparing results.

Children at Jack & Jill Center exploring the texture of mud, Beijing, China

This was an extremely insightful project and children greatly benefitted from this shared experience. All three classrooms used the Student Journals to document their findings, varying their answers based on their cultural backgrounds. Materials to run the project were easily sourced, as with the bean sorting and categorization activity, which varied according to where the children were located.

Some activities resulted in similar reactions despite geographical locations. For example, children from all 3 locations needed help in focusing on one object and generally had a tendency to look for colors that came from man-made objects as opposed to using natural cues.

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A student using a “pinhole camera� which facilitates the observation of colors, The Berkeley School, USA

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Other units varied according to their geographical location and resulted in cross border learning. In the weather unit, for example, children in Beijing talked about their favorite weather as a way to develop English language skills for weather types. When looking at the cloudy symbol, they associated it with air pollution (haze) rather than overcast weather. This prompted the teacher to explain that pollution levels can be heavily affected by the weather, yet air pollution in Beijing is man-made. Children in Berkeley were initially surprised by the association made by their counterparts in Beijing, yet could relate to it when one week later, they were forced to stay indoors due to the man-made haze created by the forest fires in Northern California.

Generally, students were fascinated by the awareness that other children like them were going through similar learning experiences and found this to be a bonding experience, even if they never met or had direct contact with the children from the other schools. “Not only has my daughter bonded with nature, she has shown a real interest in Pakistan thanks to the collaboration they had with the school thereâ€? notes MarĂ­a Fernanda Unger, parent and former humanitarian UN worker.

The Berkeley School children exploring Pakistan as a result of The Garden Project global collaboration, Berkeley, USA

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Students from Veritas Learning Circle in Karachi, Pakistan, exploring the parts of a plant

Muzaffar Bukhari, Founder of Veritas Learning Circle, Karachi, Pakistan

“

�

Exposure to nature is a big part of our curriculum. The Garden Project is very much aligned with our philosophy and helps us integrate our learning objectives in numeracy, language development and creative development in a beautiful manner.

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Students from Jack & Jill Learning Center in Beijing exploring the colors of nature in an outdoor activity of The Garden Project

“

The lesson on Nature’s Palette involved observing the colors of nature, something we got to enjoy during our outside time. All students were highly engaged for over an hour, finding different colors around us. Some needed more guidance than others. For example, younger children needed help focusing on one object and labeling its color while other children had a tendency to find color of man-made objects. This was an excellent activity for developing observational skills in the outdoors.

”

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Michael Ian Austin, teacher at Jack & Jill Learning Center in Beijing, China

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Concluding Remarks

Humanity has reached a turning point. We can no longer afford to wait to make a change in the midst the environmental, economic and geopolitical crises we are faced with. Action must be taken quickly and immediately, at all levels.

Instruction is becoming irrelevant to today’s children, and Education Reform must happen now if we want to restore our student’s trust in our system. After all, what could be more urgent than putting sustainability at the heart of our educational system? Our entire species depends on it.

This intervention needs to start at the Early Childhood level, as Ruth Wilson rightly pointed out more than 25 years ago: “Environmental education at the early childhood level has the potential for greatly enhancing the development of the young child as it fosters an appreciation of beauty and diversity and fosters growth in all the developmental domains (i.e., physical, mental, social, emotional, and spiritual).

Involvement with the natural environment stimulates the senses, fosters observational and critical thinking skills, provides innumerable topics for conversation, invites physical manipulation, and stimulates the imagination and sense of wonder... Environmental education at the early childhood level has the potential for developing an environmentally concerned citizenry that will relate to the earth in a more harmonious way than that of the present generation.” (p. 23-24) Today, The Garden Project plays a major role in shaping a new paradigm for learning. With its simple formula, teachers are provided with a framework – cognitive roadmap – to use nature as an instructional medium that can easily be adapted for local and cultural nuances, overcoming the scarcity in resources in education for sustainability for this age group.

Through nature, children are faced with the complexities and unexpected that nature has to offer, providing learners with opportunities to engage with and create bridges across a range of concepts and ideas.

Thanks to its complete program, The Garden Project creates opportunities for sharing and experiencing concepts in science, technology, engineering, arts and math, resulting in children developing their skillset holistically in all learning domains. Its developmentally appropriate framework, stages an inquiry model to learning from Wonder, to Observation to Investigation, mimicking nature’s cyclicality beautifully, in a harmoniously sustainable framework for learning. Its versatility, in its use as a Science CLIL program, means that it is

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a precious resource even when not translated into a student’s native language, as it can be used as a curriculum to teach science in English.

Its use of perishable and organic material means that teachers and children see nature as a valuable resource that is readily available to them, regardless of their geography and/or social status, and in the process minimize waste from the purchase of big, expensive and/ or unsustainable school resources.

This tangible, hands-on framework, provides a shift to a cyclical mindset, where nothing gets disposed of. The very product of learning, seeds, become the foundation for subsequent years, and a learning resource for future classrooms to come.

As our planet’s future ambassadors, children will grow to be the decision makers of the future. Giving children a sense of ownership, by tending to the growth of their food, will give them the direction and energy they need to support their sustainable choices that lead to positive futures for nature and future generations to come.

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Websites Buck Institute for Education: www.pblworks.org Greening Detroit: https: www.greeningofdetroit.com Hoopla Education: www.hooplaeducation.com Hoopla Education Global Classroom: www.hooplaglobalclassroom.com National Trust: www.nationaltrust.org.uk United Nations, Sustainable Development Goals: www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals United Nations Economic Commission for Europe: www.unece.org Wikipedia: www.wikipedia.org

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