Elizabeth Starks

Garden Learning Engagement

Thinking within and across many time scales is necessary to understand the complexity of socio-ecological systemsore deeply. As learners explore the garden place from multiple perspectives of time, you can also help them understand gardening as a set of human and more-than-human practices that are situated throughout history and communities by thinking around the following questions:

• Who does gardening and for whom?
• How has human decision-making shaped the land through gardening practices over time?
• How do the land and land-based practices like gardening shape each other over time?

Garden Learning Engagement

Asking “what should we do?” and then making a decision is something that people, including gardeners, do every day. Deciding what to do involves knowledge about the place, understanding values and goals, and exploring possible impacts of a decision. Socio-ecological “should we” questions (1) explore relationships between humans and the natural world, (2) explore multiple possibilities and how each decision impacts families, communities, and the natural world, (including gardens), and (3) encourages us to make more ethical and accountable decisions within the garden, nature, and social world. “Should We” questions require deliberation and action, even when we are uncertain of the answer.

Garden Learning Engagement

Learners have already already drawn their first models of garden relationships- in their own neighborhoods with families and in the garden! Scientists, including gardeners, use models to visualize and understand their observations, to answer questions and make predictions about their observations of the natural world. Models help us visualize the relationships that we observe, and help us make visible relationships that we are not able to observe through sight alone. 

Garden Learning Engagement

Over time, gardeners learn different ways to address “should we” questions in the gardens. They might learn one way to compost from their neighbor, try a technique their grandmother taught them, and find another way to compost by reading a website. Or, they might have an idea about composting that they just want to experiment with. Gardeners often experiment with one solution, try something new if that does work, or try multiple solutions at once. Sometimes, a gardener may choose to do nothing–but they think through the possible outcomes of doing nothing and/or letting the more-than human world do the gardening for them.

Garden Learning Engagement

There are many ways to collect data and gather information to explore a “Should We” question. Talking to gardeners, farmers, beekeepers, landscapers, etc in your community is critical because “Should We” questions explore the connection between the natural world and human lives, choices and behaviors. Agriculture is a practice that humans have been evolving all over the world for thousands of years. All cultures have agricultural and horticultural practices, many of which look different from the dominant Western styles of gardening and farming, and some of which include doing very little to the land and letting the more-than-human world do most of the gardening themselves. Community interviews are one way to reveal a variety of cultural and value systems that influence how gardeners make decisions. This LE will help you do this type of community-based research

Garden Learning Engagement

There are many ways to collect data and gather information to explore a garden “Should We” question. Doing field- based investigations is one way. In this learning engagement, learners will carry out an investigation and collect data in the garden. This process of planning and carrying out investigations enables us to move from opinions, beliefs, or initial ideas about phenomena to making claims from evidence.

Data is the information we collect when we conduct our research, including garden-based observations, community interviews, and garden methods research.

Evidence is data that is used to prove or disprove a particular idea. Evidence is the set of data we use to answer our research and “Should We” questions.

Garden Learning Engagement

The goal of LE 7 is to give learners the opportunity to make sense of the data that they gathered from the garden across settings (garden methods research, community interview, investigation questions, daily observation and data collection) in order to find answer to their investigations to answer their “Should We” question(s) and ground their decision-making practices in community and field-based evidence.

Garden Learning Engagement

In LE 7, learners discussed how there is some evidence telling us to take certain actions, and some evidence telling us that we should NOT take other actions in the garden. Now that you have made a final decision on your garden “Should We” question, you are ready to take action and apply the garden method with the group. There are many ways to take action(or NOT take action) in the garden. For example, the group may decide they want to harvest some of the sunflower seeds, but they also want to leave some seeds for the birds. Taking action may include harvesting some seeds and creating signs or communicating with the farm manager why they think it is important to leave the sunflower stalks up for the birds into the fall.

Garden Learning Engagement

Now that you’ve made a decision about your “Should We” garden question, your decision and the application of the garden method becomes much more powerful when you share it with others! It’s also important to share this information because there are many people who help care for the garden. The information you share will help their decision making, too, and how the garden will be cared for in the future. In this activity, you’ll decide on some ways to share your decision, why you think the decision is important, what future gardeners need to know about your decision, and anything they might need to keep track of or continue.