The Transdisciplinarity of Learning through Gardening

Gardens can be grown anywhere: balconies, rooftops, polar greenhouses, and schoolyards. Humans have been tending gardens, and adapting local environments with edible species for approximately 9000 years. With this food legacy comes deep knowledge, not only of the plants, but of ecology, math, humanities, art, and ourselves. This project explores the pedagogical opportunities of learning through gardening and the theoretical notion that over the course of our lives, we nurture our own understanding of the world like a garden. We plan, plant, water, experiment, reflect, harvest, and adapt all within social and ecological communities. We also let our minds lay fallow to recover from over use, trauma, and sickness. Our minds and bodies and community, like gardens, require tending so that they remain healthy.

Along with a selection of transdisciplinary curricular activities, the act of gardening is woven through this document with the final goal of growing all of the ingredients necessary to create veggie burgers and fries with a grade six or seven class. These activities are meant to involve you as the reader through interactive webpages and outdoor activities that I ask you to do throughout the project. Ultimately, there are three layers in this document. The first layer is a gardening activity to be conducted with a class of your own. The second layer contributes to the first layer through activities that exemplify transdisciplinarity as a possible support to teaching. The third layer is the discussion between you and me about our experiences in and with this project. Each activity is framed with pedagogical pontifications that warrant response from the reader. Please use this website as the conversational area for discussion. You will notice that there are areas below each of the activities entitled DISQUS. You can type, add photos, and web-links (including youtube) into these areas to respond to the questions asked throughout the website. I look forward to having a conversation with you!