Focus

Aim of the collaboration:

• Furthering pedagogical work and work habits of pupils at the school vegetable garden with the purpose of promoting the importance of self-sufficiency andsound cultivation of vegetables in the local environment
• Combining knowledge of several subjects within the school curriculum and of several members of the local community in order to promote the importance of self-sufficiency and a healthy diet
• Integrate several natural science subjects of the school curriculum into field work (examining ecosystems in the school’s vicinity)

The aim of the collaboration is to enable pupils to get hands-on experience with tending a garden (the school’s vegetable garden and several ornamental plants) during lectures, in line with the school’s general orientation towards sustainability.

Domžale primary school (Osnova šola Domžale; OŠ Domžale) is actively, and successfully, engaged in attempting to draw the local community into helping to cultivate the school’s surroundings which, since three years ago, include also a vegetable garden. The local community is helping the school both financially and with landscape planning (buying seedlings, planting ornamental trees, founding a small orchard).

Contribution to SD:What aspects of SD are addressed?

Promoting health; biodiversity; sustainable consumption.

Contributing to learning in ESD

The key purpose of education for sustainability (ESD) in our school is to enable our pupils the best possible field lectures in the immediate school surroundings, which we are therefore constantly trying to design along the lines of sustainable development. The focal point of the »open-air classroom« is the school vegetable garden. By cultivating it, the pupils directly learn the basics of manual labour, laws of nature pertaining to cultivating man-made ecosystems, and observing growth and development of plants, while also giving deeper meaning to self-sufficiency and cultivating healthy produce which they then use as ingredients in different dishes. We are actively trying to incorporate ESD on all levels in curriculum.