Roots and Shoots: Empowering Middle Schoolers in Forest Food Gardening

A collaborative action research backed design and development project was 'Creating and Linking Forest Garden Complementary Curriculum to Environmental Science Curriculum and Vocational Modules on Skills of Forestry, Agriculture and Culinary at Middle School Level: Heightening Awareness to Climate Change and Sustainable Development' at Som Gurukul, Kurukshetra, Haryana, by team od educational functionaries Subhash Chauhan, Praveen and Lalit Kishore. The microdential skill development module won the Commonwealth Findel-CASTME Education Award in 2024.

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Abstract of the project is as follows,

Inspired by visiting friends connected with agricultural science and technology and a teacher-educator who had organised two teacher training workshops in school, a six-week environmental studies (EVS) complementary course in ‘Forest Gardening’ was developed and implemented with the built-in concepts of sustainability, food security through forest food, and environmental conservation. The recently released curriculum framework under the National Education Policy-2020 in India in tune with UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Agenda, also urges that educational institutions must engage learners in a wide-ranging activities and materials and inspire them to become informed and active global citizens with deep awareness of sustainable development and conservation of environment. Also, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has made it mandatory for the school to carry out a short skill based course out of 30 odd listed areas, of which forestry, agriculture and culinary form the part of the list. The school took the initiative and created an EVS-integrated modular course in which four topics were taught in grade six with a forest garden worked as a lab and adjoining room worked as workshop with four gardening implements, grinding-and-grating kitchen ware to create chutneys as forest food, Three practical and workshop practice integrated STEM areas and topics incorporated the role of forest-foods in sustainability. The innovation was a part of the curriculum development to be executed in the next academic session. The curriculum development process was documented and received favourable reactions towards it both by boys and girls during a lesson study. The module development was a great learning effort for the school which is now ready for transaction from the up-coming session and its extension to grades seven and eight in the next summer vacation.

Academia (see inset) reported a similar work in Nepal but of school gardening in a systematic way. and citing of my paper. Acharya (2022) [1] demonstrates how hands-on, outdoor activities can transform traditional, lecture-based science education into a dynamic, student-centered learning experience. By establishing a school garden through a Participatory Action Research (PAR) framework, the project actively engaged basic-level students, teachers, and parents in collaborative cycles of planning, action, and reflection. The garden served as a "living laboratory" that provided contextual scaffolding, allowing students to bridge the gap between theoretical textbook concepts and real-world ecological observations. Ultimately, this experiential approach not only enhanced students' cognitive skills and motivation in science but also fostered a deep sense of environmental responsibility, highlighting the value of localized, activity-based pedagogy in community school settings.

Reference

[1]Acharya, S. R. (2022). School gardening activities as contextual scaffolding for learning science: Participatory action research in a community school in Nepal. Journal of Education and Research, 12(1), 45–67. doi.org