At the Haarentor campus, trainee teachers are learning how to look after a school garden. The “Campusacker” project, led by educationalist Ines Oldenburg, aims to help bring education for sustainable development into schools.
Gardening isn’t always plain sailing. A group of students are finding this out on this Monday morning, just before the end of the summer semester. In the pouring rain, the trainee special needs and primary school teachers trudge across a small plot of land between campus buildings A 7 and A 10 in wellington boots and raincoats, loosening the soil with rakes and pulling weeds from the ground. “We’ve been really lucky with the weather so far this summer semester. Today is the first proper rainy day,” sums up Ines Oldenburg, Professor of Educational Science specialising in the didactics of general studies at the Institute of Educational Sciences. Some of her students are currently weeding the field, which is surrounded by a homemade picket fence, whilst others are harvesting fennel or kohlrabi. Since March, the ‘Campusacker’ – which covers around 80 square metres – has also been growing Swiss chard, sweetcorn, spring onions, courgettes, gherkins, potatoes, sugar snap peas, tomatoes and various types of lettuce. “It’s just lovely to be able to work not only theoretically but also practically during my studies,” says Liv Edmunds, who is studying special educational needs.
“With the campus vegetable patch, we want to prepare trainee teachers to look after a school garden,” explains Ines Oldenburg. Children could, for example, gain practical experience of the environment and sustainability through growing vegetables in general studies lessons at primary school or in special educational settings. The background to this is the UNESCO programme “Education for Sustainable Development” (ESD), to which Germany has also committed itself. It aims to empower young people to act in an environmentally sustainable manner, with school gardens being one of the ways to bring ESD into schools. To be able to put this into practice later as teachers, the students not only undertake practical work but also explore the scientific and theoretical foundations of ESD in a seminar.
Studies show that the more sustainability young people experience at their educational institutions, the more sustainably they act
Studies have shown that the more sustainability young people experience at their educational institutions, the more sustainably they act. A vegetable patch, whether at university or at school, serves as a learning environment for all three dimensions of sustainability – the environmental, the economic and the social. The ecological dimension primarily involves understanding the natural cycle of sowing, growth and harvest. Students learn the conditions under which plants grow and how biodiversity, soil quality, fertiliser and weather affect growth – and can later pass this knowledge on to schoolchildren. Added to this is the economic dimension, as a vegetable patch can also be used to address economic questions – such as ‘How does farming make financial sense?’ or ‘Why are organic products often more expensive?’ – in a way that is appropriate for children. Last but not least, a school garden can promote the social dimension of sustainability by enabling children to learn to work together on a project and share responsibility.
A total of 13 students have been helping out on the campus vegetable patch this term. One of them is Justus Koch: “A school garden like this works really well with a Year 3 or 4 class in primary school,” he is convinced – and hopes that pupils will one day be inspired by his enthusiasm for the vegetable patch: “I really enjoyed seeing how a piece of wasteland turned into a proper vegetable patch with lots of different vegetables. It’s simply a great sense of achievement.” His fellow student Caleb Groenemeyer shares this sense of self-efficacy: “I was really sceptical at the start as to whether a farming project like this could work. But the longer it goes on, the more I enjoy it, because you see more and more of the results of your work and can then enjoy the harvest in the form of fresh vegetables.”
Successful co-operation with ‘CampusAckerdemie’
For the vegetable plot, Ines Oldenburg is working with the ‘CampusAckerdemie’, an educational programme run by the Ackerdemia association and funded, amongst others, by the Federal Ministry for the Environment. The social enterprise, based in Potsdam, supports campus vegetable plots, for example, and helps university lecturers in the selection of a suitable plot, the finding of appropriate seeds and the planning of the cultivation of up to 30 varieties of vegetables. The project also receives financial support from the BINGO Environmental Foundation of Lower Saxony. Within the university, the project is supported in particular by the Property Maintenance Department of the building management team, the Climate Protection Management team and the AStA, whose members tend the neighbouring CampusGarten. The project is initially set to run for three years and is due to be extended if the evaluation is positive. Next year, Ines Oldenburg also hopes to involve Computing Science students, who will develop an automated fertilisation and irrigation system and install it on the plot. Alba Lynn Seifert, who has also been helping out in the field, strongly recommends the Campus Garden module to other students: “I think it’s great that we get to work in such a hands-on way out in the field. You don’t get that sort of experience very often during your studies.” The seminar participants share the harvest amongst themselves. Today, as well as fennel and kohlrabi, they’ve also harvested courgettes and Swiss chard – a little bonus that quickly makes them forget the rainy weather.
