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
Purpose
Community interviews can assist you with your field-based data collection (LE 6):
- The community member can share their experiences, and give you clues about resources to read or types of data to collect. The community member can help you explain your findings from your field-based investigations or can help you think about the next questions to ask.
Community interviews will inform your thinking about the “Should We” question:
- This can be an important moment to consider who else is affected by this garden decision (human and more-than-human). Interviews can reveal the variety of cultural and value systems that influence gardeners decisions and purposes for gardening.
Community interviews can expand our views of gardening:
- Talking with a variety of gardeners can show us how to be in the garden – what to pay attention to, how to walk through the garden, etc.
- Elevate garden expertise in our community as intergenerational and interdisciplinary.
Connections to family and community gardening knowledges and practices
This learning engagement focuses on eliciting information via community experts, such as a community gardener, a local farmer, a neighbor, etc.
Learning Goals
Learners will…
- Learn about the range of purposes and practices of gardening in our own communities and beyond.
- Gather evidence from community experts to inform our gardening decisions.