Los Agroecological School Huertos allow to expand environmental education, becoming a potentially transformative tool that manages to dilute borders between the theoretical and the practical, the playful and the academic.
In this way its drivers have implemented a series of new methodologies and interesting innovations in Didactics that are significant in teaching and learning processes.
Nowadays, The majority of children do not have direct contact with the nature or origin of their own foods, which makes this necessary sensitization to the dependence of human societies of ecosystems difficult. That is why the implementation of school gardens is of crucial importance in education.
School gardens in Cantabria
The program of orchards schoolchildren, an initiative that began shy in the Cantabrian municipality of Torrelavega almost three decades ago, has become a tool of pedagogical value that encourages the respect for the environment and ecological education among the youngest.
It was the Amós de Escalante school with His little garden in a corner of the school patio that put the first seeds of the projectthanks to the initiative of a group of teachers. At present, the Torrelavega City Council is extending it to all educational centers. Each vegetable patch It adapts to the space and the availability of the center, As in the Escalante Amós where a greenhouse was installed years ago for students to enjoy planting and collecting lettuce or tomatoes, which are then taken to their homes to consume them as a family.
At present, the network of orchards Schools are made up of a dozen schools in the municipality, who are They complement another network of sustainable orchards in two locations which total 125 plots of about 70 square meters each for cultivation by the neighbors.
The Councilor for the Environment of Torrelavega, Patricia Portilla, He explains that school gardens offer children the opportunity to learn about nature practical with environmental education tools integrated in their educational curricula. Portilla ensures that the objective is that this network extends to all educational centers in the municipality, and for this, from its council, the program will support the necessary training by qualified professionals for the development and maintenance of these spaces.
This training is aimed at children but also to teachers and parents, with the aim of helping them to The management of the orchards is as efficient as possible but also as a way to involve the entire educational community in the project. It also seeks to generate synergies between the different educational centers with joint actions that have as its origin the vegetable patch school of each school.
Children empathize with the environment
In his opinion, In including a participatory approach in school orchards, the success of the project is reinforced in the long term and also contributes to children becoming citizens most committed to the environment.
The director of the Amós de Escalante school, Yolanda Ferreras, ensures that garden management is carried out from “patrols” formed by students more advanced, who are responsible for guiding their smallest classmates in planting, care and collection work.
It emphasizes that The project has “an important educational value” since it encourages companionship and respect among studentsin addition to generating skills among children who help them socialize with other colleagues.
Vegetables next to apple trees and cherry trees
As Complement to the school garden, from the City Council another initiative consisting in the planting of fruit trees next to the vegetables is promotedwith specimens of apple trees, pearles, cherry trees or plums.
These Greater trees, in addition to naturalizing the patios of the schools, are located at the request of each center in places that also allow to lighten the direct impact of sunlight in the classroomsthus fulfilling a double function, pedagogical and environmental.
Patricia Portilla highlights the importance of this initiative, that not only beautifies school spaces, but also allows students to meet first hand the process of growth of fruit trees, promoting healthy sustainability and eating values. EFE / ECOticias.com