| Summary: |
eSGarden project aims to improve inclusive quality education and students' skills.
Ecological school gardens deal with many sustainable development targets (SDGs) such as ensuring healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, inclusive and equitable quality education, gender equality or responsible consumption.
eSGarden makes a step forward in School Gardens with an innovative technology transferring pilot which pretends to transfer to the classroom activities the garden through the creation of a virtual environment that transform garden observation and work in data and information which allow the teacher to, on the one hand, build own educational resources and on the other hand, establish a connection between the physical world (garden) and the digital (virtual), linking non-formal activities outside the classroom with the content of the programs of the teaching guides. It eases the integral development of the students, helping to improve their self-esteem and personal satisfaction because the activities carried out are highly motivating and link the process of learning with the development of both personal and academic skills. Moreover, school gardens improve the relationship between the community and the school, since social and educative networks are created, fostering the feeling of belonging to a bigger community, encouraging cultural exchange, sustainability values, social integration and digital responsible use in a globalized Europe.
The ambition of the project leads to a multidisciplinary project with partners from schools, universities, organizations and business:
- Colegio La Purísima-Hermanas Franciscanas de la Inmaculada (Spain).
- Agrupamento de Escolas de Paredes (Portugal)
- Directorate of Primary School Education (Greece)
- Osnovna sola Smartno pod Smamo goro (Slovenia)
- Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain)
- Universidade do Porto (Portugal)
- Universitatea Tehnica Cluj-Napoca (Romania)
- Fundación CajaMar de la Co  |
Summary
eSGarden project aims to improve inclusive quality education and students' skills.
Ecological school gardens deal with many sustainable development targets (SDGs) such as ensuring healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, inclusive and equitable quality education, gender equality or responsible consumption.
eSGarden makes a step forward in School Gardens with an innovative technology transferring pilot which pretends to transfer to the classroom activities the garden through the creation of a virtual environment that transform garden observation and work in data and information which allow the teacher to, on the one hand, build own educational resources and on the other hand, establish a connection between the physical world (garden) and the digital (virtual), linking non-formal activities outside the classroom with the content of the programs of the teaching guides. It eases the integral development of the students, helping to improve their self-esteem and personal satisfaction because the activities carried out are highly motivating and link the process of learning with the development of both personal and academic skills. Moreover, school gardens improve the relationship between the community and the school, since social and educative networks are created, fostering the feeling of belonging to a bigger community, encouraging cultural exchange, sustainability values, social integration and digital responsible use in a globalized Europe.
The ambition of the project leads to a multidisciplinary project with partners from schools, universities, organizations and business:
- Colegio La Purísima-Hermanas Franciscanas de la Inmaculada (Spain).
- Agrupamento de Escolas de Paredes (Portugal)
- Directorate of Primary School Education (Greece)
- Osnovna sola Smartno pod Smamo goro (Slovenia)
- Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain)
- Universidade do Porto (Portugal)
- Universitatea Tehnica Cluj-Napoca (Romania)
- Fundación CajaMar de la Comunidad Valenciana (Spain)
- TB Agrosensor S.L. (Spain)
The cooperation among formal and non-formal educative organizations foster the creation of a community that addresses the integration of ICTs in schools cooperatively, taking into account technological innovations, research and the real needs of schools.
Project results are focused on developing a new methodology approach based on the adoption of school gardens in the school's curriculum within an ICT approach. The methodology will be implemented as a transversal programme to primary and secondary curriculum within different topics such as environment, society, economy, nutrition, etc. Relevant skills improvement will be focused on linguistic, technological, cultural and social skills.
Project quality is based on the definition of targets and quality indicators, especially sensitive to improve low achievers, special needs as well as education for global citizenship. Quality covers different dimension and key axes of it measured by academic success of students involved; students' motivation; students' critical thinking and responsible attitudes; students' cooperative attitudes and social challenges commitment, as well as curriculum integration assessed by integrated teaching practices and teachers´ mind set changes.
The potential of technology has two aspects. On the one hand, the interaction of students and teachers within their local environment. On the other hand, the openness towards a community that shares, collaborates and grows around a project. Therefore, the sustainability of the project is based on providing a background on experience and best practices, but also with open resources such as a software open library to control, virtualize and manage information related to school gardens; a MOOC (Massive Open On Line Course in School Gardens and ICT Activities Design; and a Screenplay book on School Gardens. Students, teachers and staff necessities should be translated into control, management and interaction requirements attending to the variety of plots, agro-uses and agro- specific planning of schools. Resources will help teacher to design gardens explaining items such as agronomic aspects, management techniques, eLearning and educational prospective.
The project involves several target groups: schools' teachers and students, families, higher education professors, university students, higher education adult students, managers and experts and personnel in organizations.
In addition to the schools' students, other beneficiaries of the project will be, therefore, young university students and adult students.
In addition, it opens up new ways of educational research on the application of technology to holistic education in the field of schools.
Among the associated partners, the project is of interest to associations that promote values such as coherence, caring for people and the planet, equity, co-responsibility, participation, solidarity and transparency. |