Designing Gardens for Education
If botanic gardens are to be used for education they should be designed with teaching and learning in mind. A garden designed for education can be a living interactive display. If it is to be a valuable teaching resource it should be designed around clear educational concepts. This is true whether we are designing the whole or simply part of the garden. The success of the final design will depend on the care taken at the planning stage.
When designing a garden for education we need to decide on:
1.The knowledge, or 'facts' we want the garden to teach that is:
- what the garden demonstrates; e.g. permaculture practices, plant taxonomy......
- what the garden is a source of; e.g. diverse dyeing and weaving materials...
- what can be compared and contrasted within the garden; e.g. flora of different countries/climatic zones...
- which plants displayed in the garden are significant to a given culture, for example, in their history, literature and folklore...
2. The concepts we want the garden to teach by for example:
- arranging plants systematically by families
- arranging plants which are used for their stem fibres and leaf fibres separately, according to their preparation or usage
- sequencing plants to tell a 'story'
3. The way we want adults, children, and students to interact with the garden, by, for example:
- featuring common local garden plants that visitors are already familiar with
- providing samples of prepared fibres along side the living plant source, which visitors can handle, see
- continuing to encourage school or college classes to grow and maintain crops and collections
- providing information on labels other than just names and distribution on labels.
4. Ways in which we can make a visit to the garden enjoyable and entertaining as well as educational, by for example:
- incorporating spaces for small displays or instructions for small groups (e.g. wider pavements or pathway junctions or corners)
- compiling information sheets highlighting just a few plants at a time, rather than long lists or numerous, lengthy labels on every plant.
5. The ways in which we want this particular garden to be special or innovative by for example:
- presenting and explaining plants significant to local, culture or history
- developing the garden to allow children to play, explore and discover.
It is seldom that educators will have the opportunity to start from scratch and design a new garden from a purely educational standpoint. However, as is most often the case, even when we are working with and adapting what is already there, as educators, we need to keep these basic principles in mind.
