Some people ask me: how is it that you, a non-educator, are involved with the school garden, which is a subject that falls within the educational community? And others say to me: what do you find interesting, you as an agronomist and environmentalist, in such a "small" scale and scientifically interesting topic, like that of the school garden, when nature and the environment in general have such a broad, diverse, and multidimensional subject for you to engage with? I reply to both that, due to my profession, my desire for nature, and my experiential engagement with the garden, I love to study it. Especially the school garden, which is the first and fundamental school of nature, where you receive the primary education about it, to feel it and experience it, to become conscious of it, to be educated environmentally, and to operate responsibly in relation to your surroundings, with humanity, and with yourself.
Because you also absorb the community of the place through your contact and communication with the elements of nature during your apprenticeship in it, because you gain values and lessons in your acquaintance and familiarity with the land, because you act earthly, actively, collectively, educationally, building your responsibility towards the world through your poetry for it and your effort within it.
Contents
- Preface
- THE IDEA OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN
- Meaning and significance of the school garden
- Gardens of education
- Introducing green into education
- The teacher's contribution
- THE EARLY YEARS (19TH CENTURY AND EARLY 20TH CENTURY)
- Origins of the Greek school garden
- The working school and the school garden
- Outward-looking gardens, gardens of contribution
- The green celebration
- Is the student a gardener or a planter?
- THE SCHOOL GARDEN AS NATURE
- The nature-loving avant-garde
- The "High Mountains" and the introduction of nature into education
- The Higher Girls' Elementary School of Volos and Alexandros Delmouzos
- THE INTERMEDIATE YEARS (BETWEEN THE WARS AND WAR)
- The school garden during the Interwar period
- The "Metaxas" period
- War gardens
- THE LATER YEARS (AFTER THE WAR)
- The school garden after the war
- New conditions, new orientations
- With order and responsibility, with feeling and honor
- THE SCHOOL TODAY AND GREEN
- The sustainable school
- The new perception of the school garden
- SCHOOL GARDEN AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
- Educating in the school garden
- The educational role of the school garden
- Participation in the school garden
- The social role of the school garden
- Planting and perceiving in the school garden
- The environmental role of the school garden
- The schoolyard and its role
- Environmental education and its significance
- CREATING SCHOOL GARDENS
- For the first time a garden, ...for ever a garden!
- Planting... The meaning of planting
- The green yard
- Breaking the asphalt of schoolyards
- The vegetable garden
- Why do we cultivate? Preconditions for cultivation - Preparation
- How do we cultivate? The flower garden
- What does the flower offer? How do we garden with flowers?
- The rock garden
- The significance of stone in Greece. Why do we create rock gardens?
- How do we create rock gardens?
- The tree garden
- The Greek orchard and its significance
- The student "gardener"
- The Greek Mediterranean garden
- The wealth of "poor" Greek nature
- The student "planter"
- Gardens of school buildings
- The rooftop garden. Planting school rooftops!
- The vertical garden
- The pot garden
- Animal husbandry garden
- The natural fauna
- The domestic fauna
- Greenhouse
- Classroom greenhouse
- Outdoor greenhouse
- Composting
- Activities
- In the nature of the garden! Games
- Tastings
- Arts and crafts
- CONCLUSION
- There was always something to say, something to give
- Bibliography
